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FOR 



PUBLIC AND PLAYER 



BY 

HERBERT REED 

("RIGHT WI^G") 

WITH TWENTY DIAGRAMS AND SIXTEEN 
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 






Copyright , 1913, by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 



All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign 
languages, including the Scandinavian 



• C C 



D 




September, 1918 



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CI.A3518 9.5 
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TO 

THE MEMORY OF THE LATE 

MARSHALL NEWELL 

WHO LOVED THE GAME 

AND TAUGHT OTHERS TO LOVE IT 

THIS LITTLE BOOK IS INSCRIBED 

BY ONE OF THE HUMBLEST 

OF HIS PUPILS 



PREFACE 

Twenty years of football, as player — in an humble 
capacity, albeit begun under the best of coaching — spectator 
on the side line or in the stand, and as a sporting writer, 
have taught me that of all those who are bound up in the 
most fascinating of school and college games, the spectators 
form the class that has suffered the most serious neglect. 
Football coaches are usually secretive persons, and they have 
succeeded in bewildering the man in the stand even when 
failing to outwit the man on the field. It is the spectator 
who needs the coaching nowadays, and it is in the hope of 
clearing away for his benefit and that of the uncoached 
schoolboy much of the mystery that has been deftly thrown 
around the game by those in close touch with the great 
football universities that this book is offered to a sometimes 
puzzled football public. 

For any particular system or institution the author holds 
no brief, for years of careful analysis of the big games have 
convinced him that no one football system has been able to 
corner all the gridiron knowledge in the country, and that 
the gridiron leaders are treading practically the same paths 
nowadays, and building for the future in the main upon 
principles that are considered sound by the master minds of 
football. 

There are both strategy and tactics in football as in war 
— the season is a campaign, the big game a battle. These 
are the salient features that lift the game out of the ruck 
of sport to the plane it now occupies. Men of mature years 
and large business interests still take the time to direct 



vi PREFACE 

the playing of this glorified field chess, but they do not 
take the public into their confidence, and the spectator too 
often leaves the field without even having faintly begun to 
understand the groundwork of the great game he has just 
witnessed. 

In the pages that follow the author has endeavored by 
means of simple diagrams, and explanations shorn as far 
as possible of technicality, to give alike to the spectator and 
the younger player, especially the ambitious schoolboy who 
has not had the advantage of expert coaching either on the 
blackboard or afield, some idea of the plays that have been 
and are successful under the existing rules, and of the 
generalship that either wins games or loses them with honor. 
The plays and the use of them tell the story, and if the spec- 
tator will apply inductive reasoning to the big games, 
finding his rule of play from the cases at hand, he will find 
the fascination of the game more than trebled. 

No one knows better than the author the difficulties 
under which the man in the stand labors, and it is in his in- 
terest that the writer has sought to take the game apart 
in these pages, in order that he may put it together again, 
which, after all, is the real fun of football. 

Credit where credit is due has been given for discovery 
and progress, remembering always, however, that the game 
is bigger and broader, more enduring and progressive than 
the men who teach it and play it. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

Preface . vii 

I The Game and the Players 1 

II Football and Warfare — Similarities and Dif- 
ferences 15 

III Relations of Captain and Coaches 31 

IV Selecting Material and Building the Team . 46 

V Coaching Systems and Assets— Scouts and 

"Bleacher" Coaches 62 

VI Simple Attack and Defense — Standard Forma- 
tions 75 

VII The Trainer — His Value to Team and Coaches . 95 

VIII Advanced Football — Individual Attack and 

Defense 109 

IX Advanced Team Play — Talking in Action — The 

Signals . . . 139 

X The Field and Its Zones of Play — Shifts and 
the Sliding Defense Against Them — The 
Kicking Game — The Forward Pass — Gen- 
eralship «. 151 

XI Coaching for the Spectator — How to Follow 

the Modern Game 185 

XII Sectional and Team Types — Coaching Tenden- 
cies — Future Strategy 208 

XIII Genius on the Gridiron 222 

XIV Ethics of the Game — Relations of Schoolboy 

and Collegian — The Faculty 'Element . . 237 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

A Perfect Tackle Play Frontispiece v 

/ 



FACING 

PAGE 



Starting the Offense — American Style 8 

"Shock Action" in Football 18 

Princeton Opens the Line 32 ^ 

A Clean Head-on Tackle 56 

The Defensive Line in Action 66 

Meeting Interference 80/ 

"Broken Field" Running ...... .... 110 / 

The Back Who Keeps His Feet . . ... . . . 116 «/ 

A "Long Gainer" in Mid-career ........ 126 * 

The Result of Eternal Vigilance ........ 144^ 

The Kicking Game 154 

Start of the Forward Pass 168 ' 

Half-Way to the Mark 180 

The Misguided Spectator 186 

Smart. Individual Interference . . . . . . . . 212 



FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC 
AND PLAYER 

CHAPTER I 

THE GAME AND THE PLAYERS 

It requires no experience in prophecy to predict that the 
future history of the football with which our schoolboy, 
collegian, and grandstand enthusiast are familiar is to be as 
American as its past. Temperament, climatic conditions 
and other factors operate to insure a steady progress along 
lines wide apart from English, Canadian or Australian. 
It has been so in the case of almost every game requiring 
physical contact played in the United States. There are 
those who will point to the Association, or "Soccer" game 
as an exception, but it would not surprise me if in the not 
too distant future certain departures would be made from 
the English style of play, a style, by the way, with which 
we have become familiar slowly. In its recent form in 
this country the Association game will never take the place 
of American Rugby, which is nearer and dearer to the 
hearts of the best type of American college athlete and his 
friends and followers than any other game could ever be. 

The beginnings of football were much alike on both sides 
the ocean, but while the Englishmen built up tradition, and 
worked out a game suited to the maximum of team, or as 
they call it in England, " combination' ' play, consistent 
with extreme individualism, the restless Americans con- 

1 



2 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

tinned their experimentation in the hope of eventually- 
establishing a sport that, while governed by certain rules, 
would be one of limitless possibilities — a game of personal 
sacrifice of the highest order extending over a brief period, 
of team play and of progress. The restless, inventive, 
American temperament could not well stop short of this. 
The result has been that while the British Isles have — 
with rare periods of innovation and unrest — a settled game, 
the United States has an ever-changing one — a game that 
makes its tactical and strategical appeal to the humblest 
member of every eleven. 

There breathes no player with the inventive faculty so 
smothered that he does not at some period of his gridiron 
career aspire to be a field general, to originate the plays, the 
tactics and the strategy that are to bring victory to his team. 

This inventive tendency is encouraged in the American 
game, discouraged in the English. I do not think that the 
great mass of American football players will ever, through 
their legislative representatives, pass on to the officials 
who handle the games the supreme authority that is vested 
in an English referee. They will not allow invention and 
progress to be choked at the outset, but will be content, 
when such invention becomes a menace to the health of the 
sport, with making such rules as will discourage further prog- 
ress along lines proved to be dangerous, thus turning the 
progressives into other channels. This was what happened 
after the season of 1911, when it was generally admitted 
that progress in the attack had been checked to such a 
degree that monotony was threatened. Radical re-arrange- 
ment of the rules was undertaken in the hope that the 
progressive tacticians and strategists might resume their 
onward march and so restore to the game much of the bril- 
liance that had been dimmed by a too severe restriction of 
the attack. 

Just as in previous years there were many who believed 



THE GAME AND THE PLAYERS 3 

that the Rules Committee had gone too far, but it was felt 
that such evils as might creep into the game might be reme- 
died in succeeding seasons as players and coaches developed 
in freer play, in individual skill and in generalship. So it is 
that the American game is always on trial with the players 
and the public, and so it is that the restlessness of the Ameri- 
can temperament keeps football thoroughly alive, and 
thoroughly representative of the changing point of view of 
its followers. 

In England it is quite another matter. The game serves 
an athlete from boyhood, through school and college, and 
thereafter. The Englishman wants a game that he can play 
through the thirties, and much at his own convenience, 
calling for the least possible amount of personal sacrifice, 
even though this restriction prevents the university fifteens 
from reaching that height of efficiency in combination 
attained by the best American university elevens. The 
busy American demands a game that can be played to the 
maximum of his powers and self-sacrifice while in school and 
college, being quite willing thereafter to turn to other sports 
for his fun and exercise. The Englishman wants to keep 
up his football, while the American does not. The latter 
would rather return to see his successors develop the game 
beyond the stage at which he was a star, to counsel and 
advise, to give his brain to this advanced development, 
and to continue as tactician and strategist the work he left 
behind him as a player. The fascination is still there, but 
he realizes that under the new order of things he cannot hope 
in his own person to cope with the younger element. 

Racquets, tennis, handball, golf and other sports built 
on individualism provide him with all that is necessary in 
the way of exercise and competitive fun, and I do not 
believe he would come out and play football even if the 
rules were so arranged as to fit the game to a man past his 
thirtieth year. The real health of American football lies 



4 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

in our schools and universities, while the saving grace of 
English football is to be found in th6 great clubs, like 
Blackheath and the Harlequins, and the international 
fifteens of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, com- 
binations that no university team could hope to meet with 
anything like an equal chance for victory. 

Englishmen have the game they want, while we have, in 
the main, the game we want; the English game is built 
around a Plan, and woe betide him who takes too many 
liberties with it, while the American game is a mass of plans 
and stratagems. There are, of course, basic principles, as 
will be shown in these pages, but they are not the principles 
of immutable rule and of tradition, but rather the principles 
that grow out of the sum of many experiences. 

We have played the English game with such patience 
as was at our command, and found it wanting. We went 
through, years ago, the game that English fifteens play 
every year, with occasional simple variations, and in the 
end discarded it. The English game for the Englishmen, 
the American for the Americans. Even in Canada English 
influence was not strong enough to prevent radical progress, 
and the fertile-minded Welshman has done what he could, 
in vain for the most part, in the face of stolidity, to work 
out English Rugby along novel, albeit simple lines. 

It may be objected that in California English Rugby 
has prospered. The argument will hardly hold, for the 
game supplanted the American style there at the command 
of the heads of two universities, and the students were 
compelled to accept such crumbs of football as were dropped 
from the faculty tables. Climatic conditions, too, lent 
themselves readily to the growth of this sporting exotic, 
and yet players at the University of California and at 
Leland Stanford Jr. University, cling to the sharp, decisive 
tackling that marks the American game. Through the 
medium of drastic measures culminating in faculty ukase, 



THE GAME AND THE PLAYERS 5 

the English game has obtained a foothold in the United 
States, but not the boldest of its adherents will maintain, 
I think, that it has found a home. In the Middle West, an 
extremely progressive football center, and in the conserva- 
tive East, I believe that the majority of players would 
rather give up the game altogether than return to English 
Rugby. It certainly could not remain English, for the same 
remorseless advance that took place years ago would 
again seize the game and re-mould it once more nearer to 
the heart's desire of the American schoolboy and collegian. 

Our autumn fields are hard, especially trying by com- 
parison with the great international field at Twickenham 
in Surrey, England, and the type of game that brings men 
scatheless through a hard match on these velvety English 
fields where great sections of turf may be rolled up like 
carpets, would prove a bone-breaker on the majority of 
our gridirons. Yet even with a much "softer" game than 
ours there frequently have been serious injuries, and 
occasionally death on the fields of the British Isles. On 
the score of injuries there would be no reason for a return to 
the parent game, and there are plenty of other reasons 
why it would be a distinct step backward. 

Again the temperamental. The American athlete who 
is not out for individual honors on track and field, who 
loves team play, could hardly stomach the idea that there 
are moments in which he, on the field, in playing togs, 
need have nothing to do. It is so in nearly all games in 
which physical contact is an element. The American 
player will invent something to do. It may be unorthodox, 
it may be against tradition and even come close to an evasion 
of the rules, but it will be an expression of the American 
spirit that will stir his team mates to greater effort, will add 
to the efficiency of his team, and will arouse the spectator, 
be he partisan or non-partisan, to a pitch of excitement, 
interest and appreciation not to be attained in any other way. 



6 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

This quality of individual initiative, I believe, appeals to 
every American. It is not lightly to be cast aside, but to 
be measured, to a certain extent harnessed, and used, in 
sport as in other activities of later life. The American 
game gives every player something to do all the time, 
permitting him at the same time to add such excess effi- 
ciency as lies within his power. What one man has done 
well of his own initiative, becomes in time what all men 
should do, and the coaches of the big elevens constantly 
raise the standard, until, taking the sum of the initiative 
of many men, they set before us their conception of the 
ideal player. This is a feature not to be found in English 
Rugby. Indeed, so rare is initiative in that game, that a 
tablet at Rugby school records the sensational feat of 
William Webb Ellis, who founded the running game, in 
picking up the ball and running with it, a performance 
alike against rule and tradition 

Succeeding innovators in England have not fared so well. 
Given a man of ideas in English Rugby, and at the first 
outcropping of individual or team novelty there is a hurried 
meeting of the referees and it is decided that the play is 
against the law. There is nothing the matter with it save 
that it must not be done. There has been in recent years 
in the English game a maneuver known as the " loose 
head," a maneuver comparable in a mild degree to our 
own shift, and it has been assailed bitterly. There were a 
few progressives who worked out a way to meet it and check 
it on the field, but the two sets of theorists were as a rule 
not allowed to continue their warfare of brains, and the game 
promptly relapsed into its former settled condition. 

Colonial teams, notably those from Australia and South 
Africa, landed in England with new ideas built on the old 
foundations, and made so thorough a sweep of the important 
matches that the old-timers paused once more to take stock, 
only to decide in the end that these innovations were what 



THE GAME AND THE PLAYERS 7 

is customarily known in England as "tricky" and hence 
outside the spirit of the rules. In our own country these 
novelties would have met with favor, and the man who 
devised them would have been hailed as the greatest coach 
of his time. Had Lorin F. Deland, of Harvard, inventor 
of the famous flying wedge, undertaken any such revolution 
in the English game, I am inclined to believe that he would 
have been roundly condemned for his temerity and his 
system of play checked at once and on the field by the 
referee. It is possible that some day an innovation as 
startling will be tried in English Rugby, but certain it is 
that the temperament of the English player, and above all 
the referee, is not yet ripe for it. 

Our game, because of the continued possession of the ball, 
is far more sharply divided into attack and defense, and for 
that reason the two branches of play are vastly dissimilar. 
Yet the one is no more attractive to the player than the 
other, and there are specialists in both. There is nothing 
in the English game and never has been that puts the player 
quite so thoroughly on his mettle as play on the defense as 
it is understood in the American game. Again, there is 
not a Plan, as in the English game, but many plans, and 
although there are, as in attack, certain well-understood 
basic principles, there is again the versatility and the initia- 
tive, both team and individual, that the English game lacks. 

In a game under American rules between two well-matched 
teams, the players of each eleven are often on the attack, 
often on the defense, knowing in advance which role they 
are to assume. This makes for the all-round development 
of the player, mentally, physically and morally. Again 
and again he faces new situations, in which he is compelled to 
exercise a high order of physical and mental courage, instan- 
taneous judgment, and initiative of the first quality. The 
sudden shift and shuttle of the fortunes of the game, appar- 
ently helter-skelter, but in reality orderly to the last degree, 



8 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

call for perhaps no quicker action than does the English 
game, but undoubtedly for quicker thinking. 

It is this chance for diagnosis of an opponent's purpose 
and method that so appeals to the American temperament, 
and so well fits the player for the battle of life, wherein the 
study of character plays so large a part. One instance of 
such diagnosis — many come to mind — will serve to give 
point to my contention. It happened some years ago at the 
Polo Grounds in New York City, where Princeton and Cor- 
nell met in their, at that period, annual game. Glenn S. 
Warner brought down from Ithaca an eleven beautifully 
drilled in attack under rules that had been adopted the 
previous winter in the hope of opening up the game. The 
forward pass was in use for the first time in many years. 
It was practically an unknown quantity. Other maneu- 
vers foreign to the old-style game had been worked out to a 
high state of efficiency. 

With this new and bewildering attack — the Cornellians 
were extremely faulty in defense — Warner's pupils began a 
rapid assault on the Princeton line that swept them across 
the last chalk mark for a touchdown. The Princeton 
tackles of that year were Cooney and Stannard, the former 
on the right, the latter on the left side of the line. Stannard 
was smothered by the interference, but it soon became 
impossible to gain ground through Cooney. Cooney began 
his diagnosis of the new play the moment it was tried. He 
counted the men in the interference; traced them when they 
went back to their positions. He found by this process that 
the two Cornell guards were in the interference on every 
tackle run, and he was prompt to act. Under almost any 
other system it would have been dangerous in the extreme 
for the Princeton guard next to Cooney to have swung out 
of his position, leaving his opponent uncared for. Yet 
Cooney explained the situation hurriedly to his guard, 
carried this man wide with him on every play, and with 



THE GAME AND THE PLAYERS 9 

the extra assistance managed to spoil every Cornell smash 
at his side of the line. In the heat of the first few mo- 
ments of the first half he had no time to pass his diagnosis 
and his remedy on to the other side of the line, and it was 
not until the lull after the first touchdown that he was able 
to get into touch with Stannard on the other wing. Cooney's 
judgment was correct, and his action perfectly applied, 
so that when both sides of the Tiger line knew the method 
of the Ithacans, Princeton won the game with something 
to spare and was able to rejoice in the knowledge that one 
of her men had faced, diagnosed under fire, and checked 
the first brilliant attack of the season under the new rules. 

There is nothing in English football that puts a premium 
on this sort of thinking. The Englishmen tell us that this 
is specialization. Admitting that that is exactly what it is, 
the answer is that it is just what we want. It makes the 
kind of game we want and develops the kind of men we need. 

It may be difficult at first for the average man to reconcile 
this specialization with a game, but game it is nevertheless; 
for those who do not so recognize it and who subordinate 
the individual to a machine, attempting to make of the 
whole matter nothing more nor less than an exact science 
must inevitably come to grief. No amount of progress, 
no amount of advancement in the art of football — and I say 
"art" advisedly — will ever spoil football as a game, for 
it is rooted in individual excellence after all, and given two 
elevens equally well coached the better men will win. 

Were the men moulded entirely to suit an inexorable 
system of play, unbending, hard, exacting, there would be a 
different story to tell. As a matter of fact, long years of 
study and experience have taught the students of tactics 
and strategy, the masters of generalship, that they must 
consider their available material before settling upon a 
plan of campaign. The foundation principles remain — the 
Yale system, the Harvard system, the Princeton, Pennsyl- 



10 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

vania, Dartmouth and Michigan systems — but the imme- 
diate plan of campaign must be sufficiently elastic to be 
altered again and again in the course of a season as well as 
from season to season, if it is to produce results. 

But if football is a game, after all, and not so serious a 
business as many of its opponents believe, it is, nevertheless, 
the most important game we have, the sport that makes 
the heaviest demand upon every fine quality of the best 
possible type of athlete. It is the crucible in which character 
is moulded at an age when character is in the process of 
formation — it is, to change the simile, the white light that 
beats upon a young man's actions and ideals. Time was 
when it was customary to believe that the player could be 
little above an educated prize-fighter. That time has passed, 
for the player has lived down in after life this false reputa- 
tion, and lived up to the reputation he enjoyed among those 
who really knew. At Harvard there is a memorial gate 
to one of the sweetest characters I ever knew — Marshall 
Newell, master of football, and at the same time guide, 
counsellor and friend. 

In public life the percentage of successful men who are 
graduates of the gridiron is high. In the fall of 1912 
"Bum" McClung — to give him his undergraduate title — 
Treasurer of the United States under President Taft, gave 
a dinner to the famous Yale eleven of '91, the team of which 
he was captain; and the men who gathered around the 
board compared more than favorably in the matter of char- 
acter, reputation and attainment, with practically another 
picked dinner party of non-football men from the same class. 

The true character of the football player has come to 
light only in recent years, for as a rule he talks football in 
after life only to his fellow veterans, from any institution 
whatsoever, and many a man has worked alongside of one 
of these gridiron stars for years knowing nothing from his 
comrade's lips, and frequently learning from no other source 



THE GAME AND THE PLAYERS 11 

either, of the worker's reputation on the gridiron. Indeed, 
many a man who comes before the public eye would prefer 
that nothing be said about his football career, a career that 
belongs entirely to himself and his friends — to them and the 
great host of gridiron veterans among whom it is really in 
the nature of a bond. 

In recent years both faculty and undergraduate have come 
to look upon their football players as more and more expres- 
sive of the collegiate ideal — have come to feel that with all 
the achievement of the scholastically perfect, the merely 
public measure of the institution must be taken to a large 
extent from the performances and the bearing in the arena 
of the athletes, the most important of whom are the football 
men. 

There have been from time to time important movements 
looking toward the purification of football- — commendably 
when the game was in dire straits. Not the least of these 
newer undertakings was the formation of the National 
Collegiate Athletic Association, and to its everlasting credit 
be it said that it began without ostentation or assumption 
of power, believing that "influence" and nothing else would 
justify its existence and the existence of the game it sought 
to some extent to guide but not control. 

Since the beginning of the game there have been several 
elements interested in it, not the least of which have been 
the fraternity of players, never more solid and tolerant 
than now; the faculty influence, never more inclined to 
discern in the game its lasting value; the influence of the 
coaches, never more nearly on the high plane to which it 
has been sought again and again to establish that influence; 
and undergraduate support, never more inclined to sanity, 
despite the organized cheering to which so many object, 
than in these early days of the Twentieth Century. If I 
believed that any or all of these influences would fail of 
serious improvement in the course of the next twenty-five 



12 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

years, or if I believed that there was anything fundamentally 
ephemeral connected with American intercollegiate foot- 
ball, these lines never would have been written. 

Opinion against football and opinion in its favor have both 
reached the stage where each is willing to inquire of the other, 
and where the " highbrow" of opposition is removed not 
more than a parasang or two from the "low brow" of what 
has been too often overenthusiastic support. 

Not the least of the goodly football influences have been 
such men as Dean Briggs of Harvard, elected in 1912 presi- 
dent of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and 
men like Dr. A. L. Sharpe, of Yale, who took upon himself 
the recrudescence of Cornell football in more ways than 
one, not to mention other semi-athletes, semi-faculty men, 
whose word is accepted alike by the athletic element and 
the gentlemen of the university staff. It was not so many 
years ago that public and scholar alike felt that he who 
taught athletics, and especially football, was a little lower 
than the rubber with whom they had been accustomed to 
associate track athletics. 

Since those days gymnasiums have sprung up mushroom- 
like all over this broad land, and it remained for the Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin to solemnly inculcate in its curriculum, 
counting therefor certain university hours, the " Technique 
of Football." In recent years men whose goal in life lay 
far beyond the cross-barred field, have been willing to 
sacrifice a large part of their time each fall to tuition in 
the technique of football. 

Perhaps the foremost proponent of this ideal was Professor 
Raymond G. Gettell, of Trinity, who for some time aston- 
ished the football world by turning out a series of victorious 
elevens even though it was well understood that he was the 
author of several scientific text-books, and that his aim in 
life was somewhat beyond — I shall not say above — the 
perpetuation of football technique, and of football general- 



THE GAME AND THE PLAYERS 13 

ship. Instances of this sort of thing might well be multi- 
plied, and doubtless the average small college and pre- 
paratory school will be able to cite cases to the heart's 
desire of him who does not find instruction in mathematics 
or the classics and football irreconcilable; but enough has 
been said, I think, to prove the seriousness, the need, 
and the natural urge for the game. 

To those already enamored of the most fascinating 
fall pastime to be found in any country, nothing can be 
added to the charm of the big game — the journey to the 
field (not the least of its attractions) ; the spontaneous if 
from the undergraduate point of view, organized enthusiasm; 
the exuberant or otherwise return; and the never-ending 
"post-mortem" when all is over for the season. Those 
of us who have looked upon football of the Varsity caliber 
from the outside in these years of specialism have been 
much maligned in the public prints. It is said of us that 
we get nothing out of the game. It has been said of us 
that we only stand and wait, without serving, and that too 
often unintelligently, when we ourselves well might be afield. 
Yet how many of us attend when something less worthy is 
before us! How many of us attend upon pageants less 
innocent; less expressive of the things that are nearest to 
our native innocence as Americans! 

I would absolve the spectator at the great football games 
of the crime charged against him; I would absolve the play- 
ers of the charges against them — that they butcher one 
another to make an American holiday; and I would absolve 
the college, the university and the school, from the charge 
that they pervert the character-building of the class room 
to the primordial strife of the football field. It is no longer 
primordial, this pigskin battle, for the old order with its 
premium on individual like and mislike in sport has given 
way to the new order of organized effort, and the end is 
not yet. Only, at least so far as football is concerned, 



14 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

I am sure that the result has militated for the good of the 
community. 

Excess of publicity, it is true, from time to time has 
worked its ills with the stars of the cross-barred field, but 
those of us who weigh football by the standards of " stars" 
alone are no true lovers of the game, and forget that for 
every man upon the field wearing the Varsity letter, probably 
three have learned the game of games and have reaped from 
it the harvest that will make of them in years to come the 
intelligent, sportsmanlike spectators at big games, the wise 
fathers and brothers of the schoolboys and collegians that 
are the cornerstone of the greatest of games. One thing is 
sure, that if Americans did not approve — and that enthusi- 
astically — of the game and its players, it could not exist 
another season. The game, I believe, will live, and will 
expand, and the needs of the most virile of the American 
people, both bodily and mentally, will be met by it. 

What sort of young man has the game produced? We 
know what has become of the old-timers, for they are 
easily traceable, and an impressive percentage of them 
has made honorable records. The younger players are 
so often swallowed up in the obscurity of business life that 
they become lost to view, so far as their athletic prowess is 
concerned — and nothing finer could be said of them. What 
better line on the football man of the last decade could be 
gained than the information that he has not been heard of 
in athletics since he left the university! 

It was Wellington, was it not, who said that the battle of 
Waterloo had been won on the cricket fields of Eton, and 
it might well be prophesied of our next war that it will be 
won on the football fields of our schools and universities. 
What has been worth while for the British Isles may well 
be worth while for us. You who peruse these lines ask 
who among your friends is an old football player, and mark 
well what manner of man he is. 



CHAPTER II 

FOOTBALL AND WARFARE — SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES 

The art of football constantly aspires to the condition of 
warfare. Let me hasten to assure both the followers of the 
game and those opposed to it that this statement is made 
in an academic spirit. I shall attempt here merely an ex- 
amination of what appear to be the basic principles of the 
game and of the more sinister pursuit, and shall seek to 
bring to the surface similarities and differences. 

Many a spectator on leaving the field after a big game is 
prone to declare that football, after all, is " miniature war- 
fare." His opinion, as a rule, is based on nothing more 
tangible than the hazy feeling that something like a battle 
has been fought on the gridiron, that there has been much 
rough personal contact, much shock of masses, all in their 
nature more or less orderly. It is this orderly hurling of 
host against host that gives him his impression. He would 
be surprised, were he to dip into the writings of the mili- 
tarists, to find how much real foundation there was for his 
hastily formed opinion. 

There are of necessity deep fundamental differences 
between football and warfare, but once these are understood 
and kept clearly in mind one finds much in a theoretical 
way that the two have in common. I have often heard a 
football coach set forth a fundamental principle of the game 
that might readily be adopted word for word by a writer 
on strategy in warfare, and there are here and there in the 
writings of Major Wagner, of the United States Army, of 
Jomini, of Wellington, of Grant, of du Teil, and in the 

15 



16 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

maxims of Napoleon, phrases that might well be nailed up 
in letters of brass in the field house of any of our great 
universities. 

While it does not follow that a great football coach might 
have been a Napoleon, I am convinced that the Little 
Corporal could have been a mighty football coach had he 
lived in our day and generation. 

I am aware that certain military men well versed in foot- 
ball may consider a comparison between football and war- 
fare rather farfetched, but they are easily answered, for 
those among them who are actively engaged in coaching 
are putting into effect on the gridiron every fall, whether 
consciously or unconsciously, the basic principles of their 
calling. There are a few, indeed, who to my certain knowl- 
edge are doing it consciously. I might add that it would 
broaden the gridiron horizon of any civilian coach were he 
to make at least a cursory study of the strategy and tactics 
of warfare, both ancient and modern. Many a football 
problem would have been solved years ago had the coaches 
been versed in the principles of the art of war. 

Even the history of football bears a striking resemblance 
to the history of warfare. Both, in the beginning, were 
rooted in individualism; both went through that stage and 
emerged into the stage known to military men as "shock 
action"; and both are to-day largely given over to what is 
known as "fire action": in war the long range use of rifle 
and field gun, in football the long range use of the kicking 
game and the extreme development of the forward pass and 
individual interference. In both the deadliest arm of the 
present day was the slowest of development: in war the 
artillery, in football scientific kicking, handling and covering 
of kicks. In both the final "destructive element" has 
remained the same for a long period: in war the infantry, 
in football, the line as it blazes the way for the backs. 

In warfare to-day the shock action of infantry, after its 



FOOTBALL AND WARFARE 17 

advance to within striking distance has been made possible 
by heavy artillery fire, is nine times out of ten the decisive 
factor, just as the work of the line, once the kicking game has 
brought it within striking distance, is the decisive factor in 
football. There is this difference, however, that while 
in war artillery is not a deciding factor save on rare occa- 
sions, in football the kicking game may settle the issue. 

Generally speaking, then, in football, we may use our 
"artillery" in two different ways. It may be employed to 
bring the team within striking distance, that the line may 
get in its fine work, and with the running game sweep over 
the remaining yards for a touchdown; or the running game 
may be used to bring the football artillerist within striking 
distance. But both in football and in warfare the artillery 
is the great demoralizer; and, in football, all other things 
being equal, the constant use of the kicking game will at 
some time or another earn an opening for the employment 
of "shock action." The memory of the present day follower 
of football will run back easily enough to the period of con- 
stant shock action on the gridiron. The wedge, the turtle- 
back, the guards back, and the tackles back all came under 
this head. How little the kicking game was esteemed may 
be gained from the words of the late Gordon Brown, captain 
of one of Yale's greatest elevens: "We needed no kicker; 
we took the ball on our own two-yard line and carried it 
the length of the field for a touchdown." 

There was no defense that could withstand the shock 
action of those days. But the shock action of to-day, 
robbed of its wonderful cohesion by the elimination of 
pushing and pulling, is quite as wearing on the team using 
it as on the defense, and therefore must be treasured against 
the moment when the demoralization caused by scientific 
kicking shall have had its effect and broken down the de- 
fense so that the running game may be cut loose in its full 
power and at its top speed with something like a fair chance 

2 



18 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

of scoring. Just as in warfare the use of smokeless powder 
and the multiplied range of the rifle has made the ultimate 
shock action for infantry — the final " advance by rushes" — 
far more difficult and dangerous than it was at the time of 
the Civil War. 

But the one thing after all that raises American college 
football strategically to a position of lonely eminence in 
sport is the fact that no big game has ever been played that 
had not its " psychological moment." And every great 
battle has had its psychological moment. So, clear down 
on the rock bottom, football and warfare are at one. 

The theory and practice of war and football are divided 
into strategy and tactics, the division in the gridiron game 
being not as sharp as in battle, since on the gridiron one is 
at all times in contact with the enemy. It is not going too 
far, however, to state that tactics in football does not 
usually begin until after the attacking team has crossed 
the middle of the field, and that strategy continues upper- 
most until the aggressor has reached reasonable striking 
distance for the running game, or for a score by drop or 
placement kick. Generalship in football covers both 
strategy and tactics, while strategy takes less count of in- 
dividual and team technique than does tactics. 

In warfare there are three arms, infantry, cavalry and 
artillery, and if in football the work of the line coupled with 
all attacks of the backs on the opposing forwards between 
tackle and tackle be considered as infantry movements; 
runs outside tackle and end, whether from single, double 
or delayed pass, as cavalry action; and punting, place and 
drop-kicking, judiciously mixed with forward passing, as 
artillery fire, the parallel, it will readily be seen, is very close. 
The laws governing the use of the three arms in battle 
may be followed to the greatest advantage in football, as 
has already been demonstrated in action. 

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of the battle, is consumed in effecting the more or less 
elaborate maneuvers designed to make the final assault 
as simple as possible — to make it swift, sharp and decisive. 
Strategy leads inevitably to the psychological moment, 
which as a rule is seized for the effective use of shock action. 
Not so long ago a certain military man was watching a 
game of billiards in the course of which Ora Morningstar 
was making high runs. " There you are," he said, turning 
to me. "With the balls in that position you or I could 
make reasonably high runs, in spite of average technique. 
You see what Morningstar is doing; he is making the game 
simple." 

Now a field general in football bears always in mind 
the ideal position from which, considering the measure 
of his team's ability, he should strike for victory. Yet 
because of a high-class defense he may never attain that 
ideal position. The psychological moment arrives, how- 
ever, when his team reaches a position from which the 
elements that were to have been used in the ideal situation, 
may still be brought into play with better than an even 
chance of success. Yet this same psychological moment 
is often so well disguised that it takes genius to recognize it, 
just as it does in battle. 

But while the strategy and tactics of football and warfare 
come closer and closer together the further they are followed, 
war and the game differ in the outset in certain fundamental 
elements that must always be kept in mind. And football, 
fortunately, is devoid of no end of the complications of the 
war game, such as the supply train, lines of communication, 
etc. A football game endures through one hour of actual 
play, a battle from dawn to darkness, with the possibilities 
of renewal on the morrow, and through several succeeding 
days. A consideration of the terrain in war presents many 
abstruse problems, such as the advantageous disposition 
of varying numbers of troops. In football the field is 



20 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

restricted as to size by rule; there is no possibility of entrench- 
ment, save as impregnable defense may be called entrench- 
ment; the opposing teams are equal in the matter of numbers, 
and the choice of ground is important only as it is affected 
by the wind and sun. Not infrequently there is absolutely 
no choice save as a team prefers, because of temperament, 
to begin on the defensive or the offensive. 

In football there is no opportunity to find cover, and no 
concealment of the objective of the attack save that pro- 
vided by clever maneuvering in the face of and in contact 
with a vigilant enemy. Weak spots both in defense and 
attack are discovered through expert individual diagnosis 
and test, and the field general often succeeds or fails through 
clever use of or waste of superior personnel. Further, the 
ideal football team, playing under ideal conditions, is largely, 
and wisely so, a detached force. It is out of touch with its 
chief strategist, the head coach, and must depend upon its 
field general, who should enter the game untrammeled by 
instructions that go too deeply into detail. 

Attempts innumerable have been made to run an eleven 
from the side line — to handle every strategical and tactical 
move from that presumably advantageous station. They 
have failed with far greater frequency than they have 
succeeded, for the simple reason that from the point of view 
of strategy the side line is the poorest place on the field from 
which to get an accurate idea of the progress and develop- 
ment of the game. There are many coaches to-day who 
would dearly love to run their teams from the press stand, 
on the topmost row, whence may be seized the scheme of the 
battle entire. 

It is this detachment of the team in action that keeps 
football after all a game, rather than a series of machine-like 
evolutions; preserves opportunity to the individual, and in- 
sures victory or defeat to an eleven in its capacity as 
representative of undergraduate sport. No amount of 



FOOTBALL AND WARFARE 21 

strategy and tactics will retrieve individual blunders, nor will 
it rob the team of its right to stand or fall in the last analysis 
to a large extent on its personnel. I call the game " field 
chess," with the accent on the "field," for the reason that 
the blackboard game and the side line general never won 
a big match. 

Now to a consideration of strategy and tactics as they 
appear both in football and war. "Strategy," said Von 
Moltke, "is the practical adaptation of the means placed at 
a general's disposal to the attainment of the object in view." 
The definition of du Teil, instructor of Napoleon, is : " Con- 
centration of the destructive elements on the decisive point." 
Certainly no football coach would need a better foundation 
on which to build, pasting in his hat at the same time 
Napoleon's maxim, "One maneuvers only around a fixed 
point." 

Von Moltke's definition is really broad enough to cover 
tactics as well, and is therefore not quite as exact, for our 
purpose, as du TeiPs, for the latter in its very terms presup- 
poses a period when the attacking force is not in contact with 
the enemy. In football, of course, one is always in contact 
with the enemy, but in that part of the field short of actual 
striking distance the tactics of football in the general sense 
may be called passive, as distinguished from the active 
tactics in effect when the team faces the opposing eleven 
near its own goal line. There comes a time, after cross- 
ing the center of the field, and in certain cases on the defen- 
sive side of it, when active football tactics will make their 
appearance in the form of wide end runs, and runs from 
kick formations, commonly known as "long gainers," and 
these may be likened to the use of cavalry in raiding opera- 
tions. But as a general rule the main reliance up to the 
moment of striking is placed in maneuvering for the right 
of position. 

Strictly speaking, then, in football strategy deals with 



22 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

plays and more especially the choice of plays in their rela- 
tion to the position of the team on the field, while tactics 
is concerned with the execution of the play itself and with 
the individual and team technique necessary to make any 
particular play a success. 

Now it is practically mandatory in football that the man- 
euvering be done "only around a fixed point," for the ball 
itself is the fixed point, and no play can be made to go with 
anything like power, precision, speed, and " concentration 
on the decisive point" otherwise. Even the forward pass, 
with its combined delay and deception, must start from the 
position of the ball in the actual line-up. Therefore 
Napoleon's advice is unavoidable. Incidentally it leads to 
maneuvers peculiarly similar to those made in actual 
warfare. 

Let us for a moment consider the attack as it is worked 
out in warfare by Major Wagner, first considering the 
reasons why the aggressive is attractive to the commander 
who is reasonably well equipped. I quote Major Wagner 
literally, leaving his technical terms just as they appear 
in his work entitled "Organization and Tactics." 

"The commander acting on the offensive can choose his 
own line of action. He has from the first a definite plan, 
and can make feigned attacks against different parts of the 
enemy's position, while massing a preponderating force 
against a single point. On the other hand, the defender, 
in the dark as to his adversary's designs, and uncertain as to 
the point of attack, must disseminate his force so as to be 
strong at every point where a heavy assault may fall. 

"The offensive implies numerical or moral superiority, 
or both, and is an indication of confidence on the part of 
the commander which tends to raise the morale of the troops. 
This is heightened by the forward impulsion, and the tur- 
moil and excitement of the attack; and the assailants are 
comparatively unaffected by the sight of their own dead 



FOOTBALL AND WARFARE 23 

and wounded, whom they leave behind, while the defenders' 
killed and wounded encumber the position. The morale 
of the defenders is further shaken by the spectacle of an 
unflinching advance which their fire does not stop." 

Leaving out that sinister part of the quotation dealing 
with the dead and wounded, there is much here that can be 
applied to football. The team acting on the offensive has 
much the same advantage that the attacking commander 
has in battle, save that while in midfield the morale of the 
defense may be somewhat shaken, it almost invariably 
improves as the team is driven back toward its own goal 
line. In football the choice of the rushing or " infantry" 
attack at fairly long range indicates either that the field 
general has overestimated the strength of his own eleven 
and underestimated that of his opponents, or that he is 
absolutely sure of the superior personnel of his own eleven 
as well as its team superiority. As a general rule, however, 
the advantage lies with the attack only when it is within 
fair striking distance of its adversary's goal line. The 
"forward impulsion" is undoubtedly one of the great 
solidifiers of the attacking team if the plays are not checked 
at too early a stage of the advance. 

There are, indeed, certain institutions that seem con- 
stitutionally to need the feeling of "forward impulsion" at 
an early stage of the big game. Princeton is a conspicuous 
example, the Tigers often running the ball when before the 
wind, even in their own territory. Thus as far back as 
1876, playing against Yale at Hoboken, the Orange and 
Black chose the wind, but on receiving the ball at once 
started the running game, carrying the leather back to 
midfield before kicking. There are numerous other in- 
stances, but perhaps the best example of a team's morale 
being affected for the better by immediate forward impul- 
sion is furnished by the Princeton- Yale game of 1910 in 
which the Minnesota shift was used by Yale for the first 



24 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

time in the East. Yale had had a disastrous season, losing 
to Brown just before the Princeton game by the score of 
21 to 0. The Eli backs were notorious fumblers, and indeed 
the whole team was as unsteady as I have seen come out 
of New Haven in many a year. 

The moment Yale got the ball after the game opened the 
Blue set the shift in motion, and in three attempts the New 
Haven backs cleaned up a total of twenty-six yards. Un- 
doubtedly if the Elis had gone in for kicking from the start, 
had eschewed fumbling, and had saved the shift until within 
striking distance, a good chance for a touchdown might have 
developed, but in the interests of the morale of the Yale 
eleven the Minnesota play was turned on at once, with great 
effect so far as Princeton was concerned, but with even 
greater effect on the Yale players, who for the first time in 
the season found that they were equipped with something 
approaching a powerful attack. After ten minutes of play 
Yale was fully fifty per cent, stronger than when the team 
first appeared on the field, and this was due almost entirely 
to the confidence restored by the new maneuver. 

It is true of football as it is of war that the commander 
of the defense must disseminate his forces. The attack may 
always work along the safe interior lines, concentrating the 
" destructive elements" on one point after another, while 
the defense must see that all points are equally well 
guarded. Generally speaking, however, it may be said that 
the morale of the defense is stronger in the East than in the 
West, while the Westerners get more encouragement out 
of a few successful attacks than do the Easterners. Again 
consulting Major Wagner, we find that that authority divides 
the attack in warfare into three distinct phases, as follows : 

"1. The preparation, which consists of the reconnaissance 
of the terrain and the hostile position, and the use of artillery 
and long range infantry fire to shake the enemy and prepare 
the way for the assault. 



FOOTBALL AND WARFARE 25 

"2. The assault proper, which begins with the arrival of 
the infantry at effective ranges, and ends with the final 
charge on the enemy's position. 

"3. The completion, which includes the occupation of the 

position by a formed body of troops and the 

re-formation of the victorious troops disordered by the 
assault. In case the assault fails, the third phase consists 
of the withdrawal of the attacking troops." 

These three divisions apply forcibly to football, and may 
be translated from the art of war to the art of football, 
about as follows: 

1. The preparation, which consists of the use of the long- 
range kicking game; a study of the formation and range of 
the defense presented by the enemy; just enough of the 
running game when fairly close to the center of the field to 
test the defensive qualities of the enemy's personnel; when 
past the center of the field a sparing use of the simple forward 
pass to induce the defense to spread, and a general shaking 
up of the enemy by hard tackling down the field, thus 
unnerving as much as possible the men in the defense who 
are handling kicks; and every possible effort to block the 
adversary's kicks so that his punter will be hurried as much 
as possible. Every effort short of a display of the strength 
of the running game should be made, to disorganize and 
exhaust the enemy. 

2. The assault proper, which begins with the arrival of 
the football infantry — the line, fresh and strong; and the 
backs, who have done little or no running to speak of — at an 
effective range; which means in the neighborhood of thirty 
yards from the enemy's goal line; or, the running attack 
failing, a last resort to fire action in the nature of a forward 
pass over the goal line, or a field goal from drop or placement. 

3. The resumption, which means the keying up of the 
defense to the sharpest kind of work the moment play is 
resumed, so that the ball may be regained, and the policy 



26 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

of attack continued as in the first instance. It is sometimes 
wise at this point, especially if the scoring has been accom- 
plished early in the period, to remove from the game the 
men who have borne the brunt of the assault so that they 
may be rested and sent back into the affray at the moment 
when the team shall have again found itself in promising 
position for the delivery of another decisive assault. 

It should be added that in football the " reconnaissance of 
the enemy's position" consists to some extent in putting the 
burden of proof on him, by kicking the ball to him as much as 
possible, learning in this way what he intends doing with it 
and what he is capable of doing with it. 

Under the caption " Long-range Fire/' Major Wagner 
writes: "The time of beginning the firing will depend 
upon many circumstances of terrain, supply of ammunition, 
morale of the troops, and the target offered by the enemy." 
He warns against the exhaustion of ammunition before 
reaching the effective ranges. 

In football the ammunition consists of the most effective 
plays at the team's command, and these must not be wasted 
until the eleven is within effective range of the enemy's 
goal. Granted that the opposing eleven is a strong one, 
well coached on the defense, it will rapidly diagnose plays 
that are shown at too early a stage, and thus be enabled to 
stop them without gain, and often for a loss, when used at 
what would otherwise have been an effective range. Many a 
team has come to grief, or has at least lost a golden oppor- 
tunity for victory, through premature use, in its own terri- 
tory of the sort of ammunition known as "scoring plays," so 
called because they are in the nature of novelties, and de- 
pend alike upon deception and cold and accurate execution 
for success. 

Concrete examples may be found by the dozens. Harvard 
against Princeton in 1911, and Dartmouth against the 
Tigers in 1912 are outstanding illustrations. The Crimson 



FOOTBALL AND WARFARE 27 

sprung a beautiful fake forward pass play at longe range 
that gained twelve yards the first time shown, and would 
have been invaluable when the Cambridge eleven later 
found itself within reasonable striking distance. The 
Hanover eleven used a play of much the same type when 
deep in its own territory, for a gain around a Princeton wing 
of twenty-five yards. In each case kicking on first down or 
the use of a simple running play would have better served 
the purpose. As it was, the plays were used where they 
were unprofitable, and were valueless on the second attempt, 
since they had been diagnosed. 

In the matter of long-range fire the war and the football 
programmes are farther apart, for in the girdiron game a 
safe rule is to begin it at once, when the wind is at the 
kicker's back; and there is no terrain to be considered. A 
fumbling enemy is the best of targets, and in such circum- 
stances a pair of ends fast down the field can do heavy 
execution. It is perhaps needless to state that the kicking 
should be greatly varied as to direction, and if there is 
evidence that the enemy is able to run the ball back for good 
gains, the punts should be sent sailing out of bounds as far 
down the field as possible. This phase of the game is dis- 
cussed at length in another chapter, wherein the entire kick- 
ing game is considered. For the moment, however, it is 
sufficient to state that this " long-range fire'' is one of the 
deadliest features of football, as it is of warfare. 

Both in warfare and football the old-style frontal attack 
has been abandoned to a large extent. The odds against it 
in both cases are far too great save when the enemy is 
unusually weak. Time was when nine-tenths of the touch- 
downs in football from a point inside the ten-yard line were 
made through the center or guard positions — sheer frontal 
attack. There was a time, too, when the Macedonian 
phalanx and Caesar's legions found the simple frontal 
attack all-sufficient. Macdonald's great column, the heaviest 



28 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

fighting unit in military history, perhaps, broke the Austrian 
line at Wagram, just as the old-time Vs and wedges of foot- 
ball rammed their way down the field in the days when it 
was permitted to push and drag the runner and to lock arms 
over the backs of the forwards. Napoleon was driven to the 
use of the solid column when the personnel of his troops was 
in a sad state, owing to the casualties of long-continued 
warfare. 

Commenting on the battle of Vimiero, Napier wrote: 
"Nevertheless, columns are the soul of military operations; 

in them is the victory The secret consists in 

knowing when and where to extend the front.' ' As in war, 
so in football, one of the great problems has been in knowing 
"when and where to extend the front." In recent years, 
however, certain of the football strategists have extended 
the front to advantage even inside the ten-yard line, engag- 
ing that strong defensive triangle of which the base is the 
center and the two guards, and the apex the fullback, with 
"false attack," while the real play went elsewhere; or 
disregarding the center triangle almost entirely, shooting 
wide of it and turning out, or running wide, and turning in 
behind it, as prospects warranted. This method is more in 
line with the linear tactics of Frederick, depending primarily 
upon precision, and backed with all the power possible. 

To-day, in teams of nearly equal personnel, it is the flanks 
that bear the burden of the attack eight times out of ten, the 
play going straight ahead on center or guard only when short 
gains are needed, or when the defense has been so spread as 
to warrant a sudden change in the objective. 

But there is a great fundamental principle in football in 
making flank attacks that turn inside the end, and it is 
that in general the forward progress should be made as 
nearly as possible perpendicular to the line, the forward 
impulsion beginning at a point directly opposite the chosen 
point of attack in the enemy's flank. The flanking move- 



FOOTBALL AND WARFARE 29 

ment is to-day as important on the girdiron as it is on the 
field of battle. 

A word further about "fire action' ' as it is applied to 
football. The value of fire action in warfare has increased 
steadily because of the vast improvement in the range and 
effectiveness of weapons, even the cavalry dispensing with 
the old-time charges in favor of the new method. If we 
consider that in football fire action means all kinds of 
kicking and forward passing, but above all advanced indi- 
vidual interference, it is easy to see why it has supplanted 
the old-time shock action over a greater part of the 
field. 

The change has come about to some extent through the 
increased range and effectiveness of individuals, and I 
say this in the face of the old-timers who frequently main- 
tain that the players of their day were quite as versatile as 
those who make brilliant reputations under the modern 
rules. While there are exceptions, I maintain, and good 
judges with me, that there has been a tremendous advance 
in recent years in individual effectiveness. There is no 
doubt that under the present rules men like HefTelfinger, 
Sanford, Glass, and others of their type at Yale, like Wheeler, 
Hillebrand, Church, Cowan, Lea and Holly, of Princeton; 
like Cutts, Newell, and Waters, of Harvard, would perform 
up to the highest standards, but in the main the old-time 
teams did not have the individual range that is demanded 
to-day. 

Plays in those days were in the main along interior lines, 
save when the crisscross was used for end runs, or when the 
Blisses of Yale, Dibblee of Harvard, or Kelly and Reiter 
of Princeton, turned the ends largely through sheer native 
speed. So far as I have been able to learn, Yale teams were 
the first to send men down the field far ahead of the play to 
deal with the ultimate defense should the runner find clear 
sailing down to such a point, but there was nothing like 



30 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

the individual interference beyond the line of scrimmage that 
is the stock in trade of the leading elevens to-day. 

This modern individual interference is fire action with a 
vengeance, and, coupled with the actual shooting of the 
forward pass and quick kicking under the line, may fairly 
be compared with the fire action of warfare. Save the con- 
stant fumbling of kicks there is nothing more demoralizing 
to the secondary defense than being constantly bowled over 
by opponents who seem to spring from the ground in un- 
suspected places. This is true whether the play succeeds 
or fails. 

Interference beyond the scrimmage line is primarily con- 
cerned with the breaking up of the defensive triangles in 
such a way that the backs can be shot through into the 
open spaces, and these open spaces will be found in greater 
frequency behind the enemy's flank than behind his center, 
where he is bound to be numerically strong. There are Rve 
of these defensive triangles; two with their bases presented 
to the attack, three with their apexes facing the offensive 
eleven; and they can be closed up very fast. The first of 
these, made up of guards, center, and fullback, it is well to 
skirt, for it is very hard to break up, while it is best if pos- 
sible to shoot the runner into the middle of the others, at 
the same time breaking up one corner if possible. The 
play will turn out or in according to the corner it is found 
easiest to break. The other triangles are made up of two 
formed by a halfback, the fullback and tackle; another 
composed of both halfbacks and the fullback, and the last 
consisting of both halfbacks and the quarterback. 



CHAPTER III 

RELATIONS OF CAPTAIN AND COACHES 

Time was — in the dawn of American college football — 
when the captain of a university or college football team was 
not obliged to share with others not members of the eleven 
the glory of victory or the odium of defeat. He was a law 
unto himself, and although he was wont to choose from 
among the older men of the eleven advisers upon whom he 
leaned more or less heavily from time to time, he remained 
the brains of the team. In the matter of training, what 
there was of it in those old days, as in the matter of the 
actual method of play, it was the captain to whom the men 
turned, and who out of his experience as an undergraduate 
gave advice according to his lights. 

Football was comparatively simple then. Practice and 
fairly decent living, rather than specialization, sufficed to 
put a well-equipped team in the field. It was natural, 
however, that after a successful season the captain should 
return to his alma mater to help his successor as best he 
might, and it was natural, too, that the captain in his 
ignorance in the matter of proper foods and hours for men 
preparing for a severe test on the gridiron should turn to 
some trainer who had handled professional runners abroad, 
or pugilists here. This latter experimenting was costly, for 
the old-time professional trainer was himself pretty much at 
sea when it came to conditioning young men who had not 
formed the sinister habits of the prize ring, and who had not 
the physique or the temperament to respond to the regi- 
men of the professional. 

31 



32 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

The mistake in training was rectified in time, but the 
coaching development was from the start along sound lines, 
and unconsciously tended toward the foundation of a 
system that had as its basic principle the conservation of 
the accumulated knowledge of football to be handed down 
from generation to generation on the field. 

Little by little the game grew in complications so that it 
was apparently beyond the power of any one man to handle 
a big university team from the post of captain, even with 
the advice of his predecessor. It followed naturally that 
as the years drew on more and more men returned to help 
out the eleven, although the advice they gave was not at 
first what might be strictly classified under the head of 
coaching as we know it to-day. It was more in the line 
of trick maneuvers with a view to discomfit the enemy, 
and indeed, the vocabulary of the writers of those days was 
full of the word "tricks" and its synonyms. The play was 
still largely individual, and so indeed was the coaching, call- 
ing it that by courtesy. Jones of Yale showed his successor 
how he had been able to block Smith of Harvard the pre- 
vious season, and Smith retaliated in kind. 

With team play still in its infancy the value of this 
particular coaching was problematical save that it estab- 
lished the fact that the old men were expected to return 
annually and put their shoulders to the wheel. The 
initiative still came from the captain. He it was who 
devised whatever novelties in procedure were to be used 
against the most important rival, and it was he who was 
responsible for what little concerted effort was in evidence. 

But as the game progressed, and American invention 
began to show its hand, it became apparent that a man 
could not learn enough football in the course of his purely, 
undergraduate life, to cope as captain with the leader of 
another eleven that had had the benefit of the accumulated 
knowledge of the seasons. Thus it was that coaching be- 



CAPTAIN AND COACHES 33 

came thoroughly established. More and more veterans 
returned at the conclusion of each season, and it finally 
became evident that the coaching staff, with its many 
specialists, was as much in need of organization as the team 
itself. It was an easy step, therefore, to the establishment 
of a head coach, who was to the other coaches what the 
captain was to the team. 

Of all the universities Yale has clung most tenaciously 
to the integrity of the captaincy, and it is within the memory 
of some of the youngest graduates how upon occasion a Yale 
captain has been able to turn away the wisest of the veteran 
counsellors and steer his eleven for the rocks. This hap- 
pened so seldom, however, that it was not deemed wise to 
make a change, and in the main the system worked well. 
There was always Walter Camp to whom to turn in the 
darkest hour, and it was seldom that the captain who did 
turn to that fount of football wisdom came away still 
athirst. 

In the meantime Harvard and Princeton were building 
up coaching systems of their own, and as the captaincy was 
not held in quite so deep reverence at these two institutions 
as at Yale, rapid progress was made. It was not long 
before Yale, Harvard and Princeton were working along 
well established if somewhat dissimilar lines, and it was 
not long before their systems began to spread over the 
country. Wylie Woodruff was in the first flight of Yale 
coaches to take up the work at another institution, the big 
Yale guard going to Pennsylvania and almost at once put- 
ting the Red and Blue very much on its feet in football. 
Woodruff's action caused a storm of criticism at the time, 
but this soon died down, and his example was followed by 
many other Yale men, who spread the knowledge of foot- 
ball they had gained at New Haven all over the country, 
practically from coast to coast. 

It was inevitable that if systematic coaching were to have 
3 



34 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

any lasting effect supreme control would have to pass from 
captain to coach; and there it remains to-day in most of the. 
institutions of lesser gridiron rank. Thus at Yale the team 
captain remains supreme, while at a college like Wesleyan 
or Swarthmore football affairs are entirely in the hands of 
the coach. Recently a strong school football team in the 
East decided to abolish the captaincy, following the example 
of one of the most famous of the Eastern university crews. 

There are still those who contend that a team will be no 
better and no worse than its captain, but the conviction has 
been steadily growing that the coaching and the work of the 
quarterback in these days of complicated generalship must 
share the burden with the team leader. 

While, generally speaking, the captain is not the factor 
that once he was, in that he is able to shift a deal of his 
burden to other shoulders, and that much of the credit for 
the games as actually handled must go to the quarterback, 
the fact remains that he is still a power off the field, has 
plenty of opportunity to show the faculty of leadership on 
it, and that upon his harmonious relations with the coaching 
staff depends in large measure the success of the team. 
Many a big university team has gone through a disastrous 
season simply because the captain and the head coach were 
at odds, or because there were dissensions in the coaching 
staff, the captain arraying himself on on6 side, the head 
coach on the other. Only a few years ago the captain and 
the head coach of one of the largest of the Eastern university 
elevens were hardly on speaking terms, with the result that 
the team was split into irreconcilable factions. Disaster 
under these conditions was inevitable, as indeed it always 
will be. 

Under football conditions as they are to-day it is pretty 
well understood that there is plenty of room for both captain 
and coach, each in his sphere, so long as they can work in 
harmony. Of the former example in the matter of individual 



CAPTAIN AND COACHES 35 

earnestness and headwork and a high quality of leadership 
are expected both on and off the field, while of the latter 
wide football knowledge, ready judgment of men, and the 
ability to get the utmost ounce out of his subordinate 
coaches are demanded. The head coach .must have even 
beyond this something that for lack of a better term I shall 
call "thrust." This is a quality not readily to be defined. 

It is not too much to say that there are hundreds of men 
who know football as thoroughly as some of the leading 
coaches, and yet who are not by nature constructive; who 
represent only passive ability, valuable of ten in an advisory 
capacity, but useless when in a position of authority. These 
men are not necessarily lacking in heft of jaw, in tenacity or 
imposing physique, but they are not born to command, are 
not born to teach, are not born to "get it across," as your 
true football enthusiast calls that happy faculty of "lifting" 
a team up to its top plane of efficiency through sheer, 
indomitable personality. 

The number and quality of the coaches increases, of 
course, from the small preparatory school up through the 
smaller colleges to the great universities. At Yale there is 
annually a cloud of coaches, sometimes two men for every 
position as the day of the big game approaches, while 
Harvard and Princeton work with a smaller number. As a 
rule no more men stay through the season at New Haven 
than at Cambridge and Princeton, but it is in the closing 
days that the Elis make their supreme effort. At such a 
time not one man, but twenty men are "getting it across," 
even if the process means no more than going down the field 
with the players and yelling "You got him." When the 
Yale system is working at its best the sense of personal 
responsibility is insisted upon to almost a morbid extent, 
each man on the team feeling that he is personally respon- 
sible for the failure or success of the play, and he alone. It 
is impossible for the smaller colleges and the schools to carry 



36 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

the system to that extent, and at these institutions the 
burden of the head, and perhaps the only coach, is heavy 
indeed. 

But it is specifically with the functions of the captain, the 
head coach and his regular assistants, rather than with the 
army of eleventh hour " whips" that we are dealing here. 
As a general rule the importance of the captaincy is even 
greater in the school than it is in the university, and among 
the larger schools Andover has gone farther in the inculca- 
tion of self-reliance in team leadership than any other 
institution of equal rank. 

In the smaller schools the captain is apt to be the oldest 
boy on the team, and so something of an idol to his fellows. 
He can do no wrong, nine times out of ten he is almost a 
class above his team mates as a player, and he is followed 
with a blind obedience and an enthusiasm not always found 
in institutions of a higher rank. Him the coach must bind 
to him with hoops of steel, for the team will be to a large 
extent built around him, and a certain amount of outward 
and plainly visible deference on the part of the coach en- 
hances his value as a leader. 

There are exceptions, of course, notably cases in which a 
young instructor with a college reputation as a player does 
the coaching. This sort of man is usually extremely popular, 
and he finds it far less necessary to deal with the candidates 
through the medium of the captain. Even he must remem- 
ber, however, that once on the field the team passes from 
his hands to a very great extent, and if he be of the conscien- 
tious type, more and more in evidence these days, he will 
see to it that the boys get into the habit of self-reliance, 
playing their own game, on the foundation laid by him of 
course, but meeting contingencies as they arise without so 
much as a thought of looking over to the side lines. 

On these school teams the coach and captain should be 
inseparable on and off the playing field, and much is 



CAPTAIN AND COACHES 37 

often to be gained if the two will journey together early in the 
fall to witness one of the fairly important college games, 
even when the school team itself is scheduled to play. On 
their return the captain has much to tell the eleven about 
what he has seen in the way of large caliber football, his 
enthusiasm is fired, the team has had the experience of 
playing without a leader, and the prestige of the coach is 
heightened by the lecture he will be able to give on the 
lessons to be drawn from the contest he has just witnessed. 
A small matter, this, if we trust to surface indications, but 
an important one, as every man who has handled a team of 
boys knows. 

School players are of course simply at the dawn of the 
game; they are more prone to nervousness than their elders 
of the colleges, and few coaches can hope, under the present 
rules, for that smart handling of the ball that will enable 
the coach to build up a complicated style of play. It is 
usually a good plan for him to adhere to the simpler forma- 
tions, to grind into the boy, at an age when he is extremely 
eager to learn anything to be learned outside the class room, 
those everlasting fundamentals of football that will be his 
greatest asset once he enters college and tries for the "big" 
team. It is the well-grounded boy who gets the quickest 
opportunity when the first call for Freshmen candidates is 
issued at the university, and it is the knowledge of funda- 
mentals in a recruit that first catches the university coach's 
eye. He trusts to himself to provide the rest. There are 
of course a few exceptions to the general rule prescribing 
simple formations for schoolboys. "Pa" Corbin of Yale 
once turned out a school team that for variety of play and 
deftness of execution was on a par with any of the college 
teams of that year. This, however, is a rarity. 

In the case of a single coach at one of the smaller colleges, 
the situation is very nearly the same as in that of the school, 
save that the college coach will have opportunity to draw 



38 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

upon a few graduates for assistance in individual instruction. 
In selecting these men it is an invariably wise plan to turn 
their appointment over to the captain. As a rule, before 
the season opens, both coach and captain write to all the 
prominent football men of former years, the captain, how- 
ever, being allowed to send out all those invitations to return 
marked "urgent." The ideal plan, of course, is to welcome 
all the old-timers whenever they show up, but this is feasible 
only when the college has had a long and fairly successful 
career on the gridiron. 

The returned graduate who played on an inferior eleven 
inspires little confidence in the players, for he has not the 
bearing of the man who has been in the habit of achieving 
victories, and it may be, indeed, that his own knowledge 
of the game is faulty. Uniformity is best obtained by 
getting together only a selected few. These return in rota- 
tion for more or less general coaching, or in squads, the 
members of which are told off as instructors in certain 
positions. 

It is always a good plan to make absolutely sure of the 
return of an old-time punter and drop-kicker who has the 
knack of imparting his knowledge to the candidates, for 
this will take a heavy burden off the shoulders of the 
regular coach, and will assure strength in the most important 
department of the game to-day. 

To the average spectator at the big football games it 
would be a revelation could he peep behind the closed doors 
at a coaching council at one of the great universities. He 
would find anywhere from six to twelve men in solemn, and 
sometimes heated, conclave, around a big table, studying the 
situation and mapping out plans with all the earnestness 
of a cabinet or a ministry. 

The head coach, not necessarily at the same time the 
strategist, is in absolute charge, and his word is law, but 
he is a poor head coach indeed who does not welcome an 



CAPTAIN AND COACHES 39 

occasional clash of opinion among the members of his staff, 
even when that clash involves some of his pet theories. The 
chief has necessarily a bird's-eye view of the situation, and 
must rely upon his aides for intimate reports on the prob- 
lems at hand. If he is the right sort of chief he is even 
tempered, with incredible patience, and the firmness that 
comes only of long experience and due deliberation. He 
must be ready and willing to meet openly and frankly 
every challenge of his policy, and to meet it with convincing 
argument. 

His is a sort of benevolent despotism, and he must be a 
devotee of absolute justice, to be rendered only when every 
man has had his day in court. There will be times, however, 
when he will have to stand firmly on one policy or another 
against his entire staff, as well as the captain of the team, 
convincing his aides if possible that he is right, or staking 
his all on the chance that he is right and all the others are 
wrong. Fortunately such a situation seldom arises. 

There is only one man upon whom the head coach has no 
veto, and that is the trainer. In all other matters his 
authority is supreme. Now if the relations between the 
coach and the captain are of the best and the captain in 
consultation with the coach, has chosen the assistants, it 
would seem to follow that there should be little friction. 
Unfortunately that is not always the case, for football 
coaches are apt to be men of strong opinions, opinions for 
which they will make a reasonable fight, and the head coach 
therefore must be a man of supreme tact. 

Granted that the coaching staff moves as smoothly as a 
machine, there will be differences in the matter of detail 
from time to time, and the chief occasionally has to stand 
between the team and his own assistants, and with his 
strategist, if he has an assistant acting in that capacity, 
and against the other coaches. 

The view of the head coach is perforce the larger view, 



40 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

and he must maintain his eminence in that respect at all 
cost lest his own judgment be warped and disaster follow. 
Through his scouts he will know more than the other men 
of what the other great teams are doing, and he will naturally 
be broader in his treatment of his team and its theory of play 
than any of the specialists under him possibly could be. It 
is a poor sort of assistant coach who does not at times 
doubt the wisdom of his chief and go to him frankly with 
his doubts. The " Missourians" of football are usually 
the defensive coaches, who believe so thoroughly in the 
efficacy of their own defensive methods that they cannot see 
how the plan of attack laid out for the team is ever going to 
gain ground against an eleven that appears, at least on paper, 
to be equally strong. These men are often difficult indeed 
to convince that things are as they should be, and, indeed, 
the rivalry between the attacking and defensive coaches — 
the attack almost always invariably in sole charge of the 
head coach — is keen throughout the season; this in spite 
of the fact that the chief is also presumably a well-equipped 
defensive coach as well. It is here that firmness and tact 
count heavily. 

It not infrequently happens that a big university eleven 
does well under a head coach who has very little assistance 
anywhere near his own caliber, as Wisconsin under Juneau, 
Michigan under Yost, and Minnesota under Dr. H. L. 
Williams, but as a rule I believe that the fairly balanced 
staff, working smoothly with head coach and captain, is 
the better plan. For an eleven of the first rank ten men are 
none too many, as follows: one man each for the center, 
guards, tackles and ends; one general line coach, useful 
both on attack and defense; one man for the general defense 
and one for the secondary, who would also be useful as a 
coach for the backs on the offense; one man for punters 
and drop-kickers; the head coach, who should be himself 
a strategist and general offensive coach of the first rank; 



CAPTAIN AND COACHES 41 

and a man for the quarterbacks, the last-named one of the 
most important in the group. Splendid results have been 
obtained by a staff of this size, assigned as I have indicated, 
and the great university elevens can hardly be expected to 
get along with fewer men, partly because so much of the 
early season has to be used up in the sifting out of the 
masses of material, and partly because the team will be 
pounded hard as the big games approach, and will be ex- 
pected to come along with a rush in the first week in 
November. 

The absolute organization of such a staff at the earliest 
possible moment is a necessity. There must be an ex- 
change of opinion on every department of the game be- 
tween the chief and his aides before the men get down to 
work. The head coach will lay out for the free and frank 
criticism of his assistants his general theories of attack and 
defense while the captain is rounding up the material and 
looking it over on the field. From the general discussion 
of the strategy and tactics of the game the conference will 
get down to details, and one by one the head coach will 
take up with his assistants the particular work laid out for 
each. 

The session will begin with what amounts practically to 
an examination, and end in a conversational clinch. And 
the captain must know every move. Each of the assist- 
ants will be held absolutely responsible for the work in his 
charge, and there will be a general gathering at least twice 
a week. As the season advances one of these meetings is 
usually held right after the game, when the chart of the 
gridiron fracas is gone over, notes are compared, and the 
coaches later discuss the game in detail with their pupils, 
using the blackboard. This is the time to correct faults, 
when the game is fresh in the minds of the players, and not 
infrequently fresh in their flesh and bones and skin. The 
other meeting of the week is usually a Wednesday affair 



42 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

when the work is again gone over and plans for the coming 
game are discussed. Blackboard talks usually are handled 
chiefly by the head coach, but it is a good plan, and one 
followed at most universities, to let the other coaches and 
the players have a chance, with a view to correcting indi- 
vidual faults. This is a matter that comes more properly 
under the head of a later chapter, but I mention it here as 
an indication of how little time it takes to get the members 
of a coaching staff thoroughly acquainted with one another 
and the captain. 

Apart from their conferences with the head coach it is 
the custom for his aides to talk things over among them- 
selves, to exchange observations of the temperamental and 
other peculiarities of the material they are handling, to 
ask and give advice in technique— especially is this impor- 
tant for the line coaches, since it is one of the foundations 
of team work — and to discuss the progress of the eleven as 
a whole. 

The coach of the quarterback spends perhaps more of 
his time with the head coach than with any of the others, 
for it is some one of his pupils who will be held responsible 
for the generalship with which the team is run on the day 
of days, and although the strategy to be employed should 
be the common property of all the coaches and with rare 
exceptions of all the players, it must become second nature 
to this particular coach and his men. The defensive 
coaches should be inseparable, never failing, however, to 
keep always in touch with the chief, for, as has been said, 
he is the presumable master of defense as he is of attack, 
and the specialists need constantly to refresh their point of 
view through the medium of frequent conferences with 
their leader. 

In a later chapter the detail work of the coaching staff 
will be discussed at greater length. I have sought to show 
here the importance of harmony among the men who are 



CAPTAIN AND COACHES 43 

to teach the team, and harmony with the captain, who is 
the all-important connecting link. If the undergraduate 
leader and the head coach find it necessary to be in absolute 
accord it follows easily enough that the lesser coaches 
should spend some of their time with the captain. It must 
be remembered that the latter is of necessity in closer 
sympathy with the players than older men could possibly 
be, and while he is not perhaps so apt to judge their charac- 
ter accurately, he is at least certain to know enough about 
his class and his team mates to set the older and wiser 
coaches on the right track. 

In the strictest sense the captain is the man who leads 
the eleven, the head coach the man who is expected to push 
it. The captain is in the forefront of the gridiron battle 
from the beginning of the season, while the head coach is 
the man behind the team. The one is a rallying point, 
the other a constant urge, a "thrusting" force that should 
be both feared and respected. It is a mistake, however, 
to expect that either shall be a superman. Much in the 
way of individual fault can be forgiven a captain so long as 
he is a cool, rapid-fire thinker and an inspiration where the 
battle is thickest. No captain can hope to conceal from 
the best of his associates such faults as may be rooted in 
his own play, and he should be as frank in criticism of his 
own errors as of those of any other member of the team. 
He is, after all, only human. The one unforgivable fault 
is a mistake of the head. He should know his game better 
than any other man on the team, whether or not he can 
play up to the standard he has set for himself. 

But if the captain is to be a leader in word and deed, 
none the less is he to be a leader in self-sacrifice. More 
than one captain has failed miserably in his crowded hour 
because he undertook to make the touchdown that should 
have been left to some other member of the team. It re- 
quires a high type of courage for the captain of a great 



44 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

university eleven to put aside the temptation to shine 
personally at the expense of his fellows, or when badly 
shaken up to leave the game in favor of a substitute, who, 
if not nearly so good a player, is at least in far better shape 
to be of real value to his team. 

It takes courage, too, to weigh the situation in just the 
tick of a second and decide upon the psychological moment 
for going into action personally in the hope of starting a 
rally that may turn defeat into victory. It is easy to criti- 
cize, and the captain is out in the white light that beats 
upon a leader under fire. His position is peculiarly dif- 
ficult in that he is expected to show not alone superior 
brain work, but too often also superior personal playing 
skill. He may be criticized for doing too little of the work, 
or for doing too much, and in either case his reputation is 
bound to suffer. 

Happily, in recent years, the game has been blessed 
with any number of almost ideal captains, both on big 
and little teams, and they have done much to set an ex- 
ample for the men who will follow in their footsteps. Ex- 
amples of almost heroic personal achievement and of 
almost heroic personal sacrifice have been so numerous 
that any schoolboy should know these days just what sort 
of person a captain ought to be. 

There was one instance not so long ago of a captain who 
deemed himself in too poor shape to play in his big game. 
Sending a substitute into his position he watched the strug- 
gle from the side lines. His sacrifice went to the extent 
that he deemed it inadvisable to play for even so much as 
a single minute. It is seldom that a football leader is 
called upon to make so great a sacrifice as that, but the 
fact that Francis Burr, of Harvard, was able to do it, and 
do it cheerfully, has been an inspiration to Crimson cap- 
tains who have come after him. It is seldom nowadays 
that one sees a badly injured captain led from the field, 



CAPTAIN AND COACHES 45 

fighting all the way to the side lines. A captain in that 
condition is of no possible value to his team, and no one 
should be quicker to realize it than he. 

Some one of the militarists has said that "a knowledge 
of human nature is half of the science of war," and General 
Sherman wrote: 

" There is a soul to an army as well as to the individual 
man, and no general can accomplish the full work of his 
army unless he commands the souls of his men as well as 
their bodies and legs." 

What General Sherman said of an army applies with 
marked force to a football team. There have been great 
elevens with " souls" and poor ones, too, quite as well 
equipped in that respect. Fred Daly's Yale team that 
snatched a victory from Princeton not so long ago and 
fought a far superior Harvard eleven to a scoreless tie in 
the same season had a "soul," and Captain Daly found 
it and understood it and made the most of it in its two big 
games. There was a "soul" — call it a personality if you 
prefer — in the Harvard eleven of 1912, and Captain Wendell 
made the most of it. 

It is this "soul," this subtle response as an entity that 
makes certain elevens stand out so conspicuously, and it 
is the one thing that both the captain and the head coach 
must grasp and understand if they are to be ever-victori- 
ous or rally brilliantly when the real test comes. 

Every now and then one reads, during the football 
season, that such and such a team has "found itself." 
This means nothing more nor less than that the team has 
found this "soul" of which General Sherman wrote, and 
that captain and head coach have found it, too. 



CHAPTER IV 

SELECTING MATERIAL AND BUILDING THE TEAM 

Football, as it is understood especially by captain and 
coach rather than by the spectator, begins much earlier than 
the uninitiated might imagine. It is hardly too much to say 
that so far as the two representatives of the system are 
concerned another season's work begins immediately after 
the conclusion of the final game* Mistakes have been made 
in that game, or perhaps theories that have been hitherto 
nothing but theories, have proved sound and of sufficient 
value to add permanently to the football stock of the 
institution in question. Most of the players are apt to 
forget football after a few days and turn their attention to 
some winter sport. Not so the captain and coach, who, if 
they hope to be successful another year, begin at once the 
building process. 

On the night of the big game there is unexampled oppor- 
tunity for the head coach to obtain the opinions of graduate 
coaches, who, of course, have been out in force, and if the 
game has resulted in disaster there is some pretty plain 
speaking at the dinner to the team that immediately follows 
the final game. 

Throughout the season there has been as a rule some con- 
flict of opinion among graduates as to the expediency of 
certain styles of play, for much of football is fairly debatable 
nowadays, and the last night of the campaign is the best 
possible time for attack and support of these opinions with 
the achievements and blunders of the big game fresh in 

46 



SELECTING AND BUILDING THE TEAM 47 

mind. There is less restraint in the course of the discus- 
sion than there would be were it left to a later date, and the 
men who have been in the game and borne the heat of the 
combat and perhaps the burden of defeat are in proper 
mood to learn the lessons of the afternoon's struggle. 

If there is anything radically wrong with the system it 
should be brought out at once, for there will be more and 
better critics on hand than it will be possible to gather 
together before another fall. Most of the radical changes in 
system, indeed, have been in their incipiency right after the 
big game, and the subsequent proceedings are largely 
deliberative. Such has been the case notably at Yale and 
Harvard, where a horde of old-timers is to be found available 
at the conclusion of the game, and outspoken old-timers, 
at that. It will be possible under such circumstances to 
crystallize opinion to some extent and make the path of 
coach and captain alike easier before the winter breaks up and 
there is any chance for spring practice. It is not my purpose 
here to deal with the ethics of spring practice .or preliminary 
practice in the fall. It is enough to say that both are in 
common use and are not without their results. 

As soon as a captain is elected he at once takes stock of the 
material left over from the team for another season, and 
receives the fullest report possible from the man who has 
been handling the Freshmen eleven, since only the Freshmen 
and the second eleven can act as "feeders" as a rule to the 
Varsity squad nowadays. It is a wise captain who looks 
up the scholarship of the men who are to be available 
another year, who has a quiet little talk with the laggards, 
and who, in exceptionally troublesome cases, calls in a 
graduate to help him impress upon the possible delinquent 
the value of a high standard in studies. An appeal to the 
loyalty of the player is often not without results, and it is 
here that the captain begins to make his influence felt. He 
is captain off the field as well as on, on the campus and in 



48 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

the class room, and if he is to be a successful one, he must 
keep steadily at football out of season as well as in. 

The head, or resident coach, busies himself with a review 
of the season, and files away for reference his observations 
and those of his assistants and scouts, that the "sys- 
tem" may go on without a hitch and may profit not only 
in the following season but in many thereafter by the ex- 
periences of the campaign just closed. 
. . Subsequent proceedings present no serious obstacles if 
the season has been fairly successful and the head coach 
has been confirmed in his methods. Simpler still is the 
course to be followed should the general undergraduate and 
graduate football spirit be high. Happy the coach who is 
working with what Dr. A. L. Sharpe, of Yale, calls an 
established "football family." In an institution ideally 
adapted to the successful pursuit of football a fair knowledge 
of technique is spread pretty well through the university, 
and intelligent undergraduate criticism is an exceedingly 
effective weapon. Unintelligent undergraduate and gradu- 
ate criticism, on the other hand, is an unmitigated nuisance 
and should be treated as such. 

The clever head coach will make every effort to keep the 
university from getting out of touch with the team. To this 
end he should be seen frequently on the campus and wher- 
ever the undergraduates congregate, making of himself a 
link between the team and its supporters. He should never 
hesitate to act as volunteer spokesman for the team, and 
should be as frank and open as possible in telling of its 
progress. In getting ready for the season he should take 
care that through the university publications and through 
other means there will be a thorough understanding of just 
what the prospects are before the season opens and just 
what, in a large way, are the problems that coach, captain 
and team must solve. It is a mistake, I think, to belittle 
good material to the team's supporters, and an equally great 



SELECTING AND BUILDING THE TEAM 49 

mistake to raise any false hopes. The head coach must 
have the support of the university behind the eleven, yes 
and behind the second eleven as well. 

It is a good sign when a large crowd turns out for the 
early practice, broken up into small groups shouting for 
individual favorites. This close following of the early work 
should be kept up and encouraged, and for this reason he 
is a wise coach who puts not his faith in over-much secret 
practice. Even the most loyal of non-combatants find 
considerable difficulty in working up anything but machine- 
made enthusiasm on the day of the big game over men whom 
they do not know by sight. It is in ways like these that a 
" football family" is built up. 

Granting, then, that conditions at the university in ques- 
tion are favorable, that the scholarship of the left-over 
candidates and veterans is all that could be desired, and that 
the system in use is supported adequately, the first serious 
football move is made in the spring when the more promising 
material is called out for practice of a light order. For this 
work the men should be lightly clad, as there is to be no 
scrimmaging. They should have prepared themselves by 
getting in good enough condition so that the head coach 
and the captain will be enabled to get a fair idea of their 
speed and activity. Of course it is too much to expect that 
the big men of the squad will be down to actual football 
weight, and allowance will have to be made for this, but it 
will not hurt the candidates for the backfield and for the ends 
to do a little early track work in order to tune up in speed and 
quick starting. 

The bulk of the work will consist of kicking, passing and 
catching kicks — general handling of the ball — running down 
the field, quick starting, and walking and trotting through 
the simpler formations. New men will thus have a chance 
to work off their natural awkwardness. A football is one of 
the most difficult things in the world to handle, and under 

4 



50 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

the rules that have been built up since the open game came 
into existence there are innumerable occasions upon which it 
must be handled like a baseball. The great fault of most teams 
that have failed in the last ten years has been poor handling 
of the ball, and practice in this department of the game 
should be never-ending. Almost every man, especially the 
forward who comes out for football, has a natural tendency 
to " fight the ball" and he should be taught to overcome 
this in spring practice if possible. There is so much to do 
after the season opens that it is a handicap to the coaches 
when they have to go back to the beginning and teach their 
men how to handle the ball all over again. The period of 
spring practice is not too early to begin to teach the candi- 
dates that fumbling a loose ball is a crime and missing a 
punt a sin. It may be objected by their elders that these 
terms are a little harsh for faults connected with a mere 
game, but the answer is that a certain amount of exaggera- 
tion is necessary in an appeal to the husky young man in 
his second or third year in the university, and that he takes 
his other college activities quite as seriously. There is no 
reason, then, why football should suffer any more than the 
fraternity, the class, or indeed the class room. Undergrad- 
uate life is, rightly or wrongly, one of enthusiasms, and the 
rewards and punishments of the gridiron are established 
accordingly. 

In the course of this same spring practice it would be well 
if some enthusiastic graduate could be prevailed upon to 
give prizes for punting, drop-kicking and forward passing, 
taking account both of accuracy and distance. It is never 
too early to uncover a kicker and forward passer, and the 
attractions of competitive athletics ought to be a part of 
football as early and as often as possible. 

In working up the simple formations it would be well to 
give the veterans their old places at once. They are heroes 
to the undergraduate, and should remain so until some 



SELECTING AND BUILDING THE TEAM 51 

newcomer bowls them from their pedestals. There is one 
other matter in which many coaches err, and that is in 
placing a greenhorn alongside a veteran instead of using an 
experienced man from the second eleven. It is better to 
group all the experience in one set of men and all the inex- 
perience in the other. The greenhorn will then have an 
opportunity to watch the veterans at work and will not have 
to make a show of himself in public and perhaps lose a 
friend through clumsily stepping all over the old-timer, who 
is not particularly enamored of that sort of thing. 

Simple signals should be evolved at once, and the men 
taught to run through formations from signal. Indeed, 
the chief value of this early practice, beyond giving the 
coach and captain a line on the material, and emphasizing 
the value of clean handling of the ball, lies in the oppor- 
tunity it affords of getting the less experienced players to 
feel at home on the field, individually and as an eleven. 
Every encouragement should be given to the newcomers — 
in the hustle of fall work, when a great deal of hurried weed- 
ing out will have to be done, there will be less time for this 
sort of thing. Especially is this true of the promising 
kickers, who should be allowed to do their punting and drop- 
kicking in their own way, taking their own time, and even 
two steps if necessary. The fall is time enough for the 
polishing process. 

By the time the spring practice is over there should be at 
least two tentative elevens in the field, thoroughly conver- 
sant with the rules, well under way in the matter of handling 
the ball, and sufficiently worked up as to enthusiasm to be 
willing to make almost any sacrifice in the hope of "mak- 
ing" the Varsity team the following fall. It remains now only 
for the coach to keep the men at the point to which he has 
brought them, and to this end he should ask the candidates 
to keep in fair shape throughout the summer, handle a foot- 
ball during vacation with some degree of regularity, and 



52 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

return early in the fall, perhaps about a week before the 
university opens. The spring practice makes for better 
acquaintance and for a degree of mutual confidence not 
to be worked up in a hurry in the fall. When the university 
opens there is no time for introductions and exchanges of 
pleasantries, and it is well for the work of the team if the 
man trying for left tackle shall already have started up a 
friendship with the chap who is out for left end. 

The spring practice is the first real step toward laying out 
the campaign; the second generally is taken some time in 
August, when the head coach, equipped with memoranda 
of the material at hand and data on such rule changes as may 
have been made, sits down to decide tentatively upon the 
style of game his men will be called upon to play. It may 
be that he has in his squad more weight than speed, or 
vice versa; that the men are husky and willing but not too 
quick mentally; or that they are small but extremely fast, 
brainy and aggressive. It is true, of course, that the fall 
practice will make some difference in his calculations, but 
as a rule he can be pretty sure in August what general 
style of play will be best suited to the available material. 

He will decide also, in this little private August seance, 
whether it will be worth while to move some of his veterans 
from their old positions to new, either to concentrate or 
distribute the strength of his team, and whether he is apt 
to be stronger in the kicking or the running game. The 
weight of his men will be a big factor, for all other things 
being nearly equal, the heavy man will be of the greater 
value. There will be some positions on the team in which 
weight will have to be sacrificed to speed, and others in which 
weight will be a commanding factor, and he is a poor coach 
indeed, who in laying out the skeleton plan of his team does 
not take into account the possibility of getting a new and 
stronger combination by shifting his experienced men. A 
center often makes a good guard or tackle, a substitute 



SELECTING AND BUILDING THE TEAM 53 

tackle sometimes develops into a first-class center, and so 
on. Further, in contemplating these changes, the head 
coach will take into account the individual strength of his 
coaching staff, relying sometimes more upon the coach than 
upon the player for a successful change in position. 

In the end the head coach will consider the matter from 
the point of view of the opposing coach or coaches. I once 
heard a head coach say at one of these quiet August seances, 
"They say you can no longer run the ball under the present 
rules. Therefore, I'll run it." And he did run it, perhaps 
more successfully than any other coach that season. The 
head coach will attempt to evolve the game that he would 
teach had he ideal material, the game that would be advis- 
able for strength in certain positions, and so on until he hits 
upon the game that seems best suited to his tentatively 
chosen eleven. 

Coaches are constantly upon the two horns of a problem 
— whether to fit the plan of campaign to the available 
material, or drill the material to fit an ideal plan of cam- 
paign. Since in recent years football has shown a marked 
tendency toward standardization, however, the first course 
is the one generally adopted. The standard game is taught, 
and the changes in style that are specially adapted to weight 
or to speed, as the case may be, are taken up later in the 
season and serve as the basis for the hope of victory. 

Despite the fact that after the radical rule changes of 
1911 the defense against the running game did not show the 
falling off that had been expected in many quarters, there 
has remained an abiding faith in the ability of the attack- 
ing team to gain ground, ball in hand, in any part of the 
field, so that the running attack, far from dwindling in 
importance as it seemed likely to do before the extension 
of the forward pass zone behind the two goal lines, has 
shown marked progress. I take no serious risk in predict- 
ing that in the future the running game will show to the 



54 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

utmost advantage when backed up by high-class work in 
the other departments of play. 

It is impossible to convince any first-class coach nowadays 
that the running game will never be consistently valuable. 
It sometimes happens that a team will have to be built 
largely around one man — a man like Brickley of Harvard, 
for instance, or Sprackling of Brown — and under such con- 
ditions the coach will naturally make the most of the open, 
or "loose ball" game. Granted a good center and a 
veteran pair of tackles, however, and there will be a natural 
drift toward the running game, toward sharp thrusts into 
the line, for, as so often has been the case, the tackles after 
the radical rule changes of 1911 have become once again 
the storm centers of modern football. Over them, inside 
and outside of them much of the ground will be gained, 
and on the attack they will be held largely responsible for 
making a path for the runner, doing: the double duty of 
making the path for the runner and going on to engage 
the secondary defense, the latter nowadays the terror and 
despair of the offensive coach. It is this heavy burden 
that falls upon the tackles in any possible plan of campaign 
that makes their work so important and their selection at 
the earliest possible moment imperative. 

Most coaches, when they find that they have a good pair 
of tackles, will plan to make a specialty of their work on 
attack, not infrequently changing the whole complexion 
of the line in order to let them work together. The ideal 
tackle should weigh close to 200 pounds and have a 
large share of speed and brains. If a light end is to play 
beside him some of the speed may be sacrificed to weight, 
whereas, if flanked by a heavy end and with heavy backs 
behind him, some of the avoirdupois may be dispensed 
with in the interest of speed. In a general sense what is 
true of the tackles is true of the entire team. 

Every man should be fast, heavy and strong, for with push- 



SELECTING AND BUILDING THE TEAM 55 

ing and pulling eliminated from the game there are innu- 
merable occasions upon which a man has to stand or fall 
on his own sheer strength. Weight can be spared at quarter 
better than in any other position, and if the candidate is 
strong and active, a comparatively light center will fill the 
bill at the pivot position, especially if he be a good passer. 
Indeed, I think that a coach in picking out a center should sac- 
rifice nearly every other quality, if necessary, to sure passing. 
Again, the lighter the backs, the heavier the line should 
be as a rule. Incidentally there never was a set of rules for 
the American game in which heavy forwards were not an 
important and a great deal of the time the deciding factor. 

For this reason it may sometimes be necessary to go into 
the big game with personally rugged material that has at 
command only a certain small number of plays in which 
the men are letter perfect — plays, that, simple as they may 
be, are nevertheless executed with never failing power. 
If this heavy material be not available, then the head 
coach will have to make up in versatility what his men 
lack in ruggedness. In either case, the players must be 
well equipped with brains, for there is so much individual 
work nowadays, and the game is so shifty, that mere bull 
strength is no longer at a premium. Granting that weight, 
speed and brains are essential in line material, height is of 
less importance, save on the ends, where the wing men 
nowadays are expected to reach up and take the forward 
pass in mid-career, snatching it cleanly away from the eager, 
leaping, secondary defense. 

If sacrifices are necessary in picking out material for the 
planned campaign, the head coach is more likely to sacri- 
fice speed in the forward line than in the backfield, for the 
backs have an enormous amount of ground to cover against 
the improved running game, the unrestricted forward pass — 
unrestricted beyond the line of scrimmage — and the quick 
kicking under the line that was restored to football after 



56 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

some experimenting with a five-yard restriction back of 
the line. The restriction was taken off the kicking in the 
interest of strengthening the attack, greatly increasing 
both the actual kick and the threat thereof. In the case 
of a light back who is built close to the ground the rule re- 
garding weight may be overlooked now and then, for 150 
pounds with a low center of gravity is sometimes as good 
as 180 pounds well up in the air. These short, stocky 
backs, however, are extremely rare. On the defense as 
well as on the attack weight is of the greatest value, for 
under the rules as they are worked out to-day individuals 
in the defense come in for some hard hammering at the 
hands of fast and heavy interference, that, unless the for- 
wards be alert to the last degree, has been able to get up 
considerable momentum. 

Ler us consider for a moment the attack so far as its in- 
dividual members are affected by the latest rules. Under 
the old rules it was possible to make a first down in three 
tries when the backs averaged 3| yards on each attempt. 
But since kicking was usually resorted to on the fourth 
down or third try, the backs were really required to av- 
erage 5 yards each to earn a first down save when inside 
the ten-yard line, when the average naturally and auto- 
matically returned to 3i yards. Under the revised code 
the backs have been compelled to average 2J yards in 
order to earn a first down, but since the fifth down, or 
fourth try has been given over to punting, this has meant 
that the average has been after all, 3J yards, with the 
advantage over the old code that the three tries could be 
used without losing the ball. 

Naturally the decreased necessary average means a 
premium on heavy backs, for the runner's length is of more 
importance even than it used to be. Therefore the man 
who is fairly sure of his own length every time, and is big 
and strong enough to keep his feet when tackled, must 



SELECTING AND BUILDING THE TEAM 57 

always be in great demand even though unable perhaps 
to make a ten-yard gain at any time in the course of the 
game. 

Now the back of to-day must depend upon his own ef- 
forts to make ground after he is tackled, since his team 
mates cannot assist him, and the big, rugged back is more 
likely to keep righting along than the small one, no matter 
how speedy the latter may be. Under the ten-yard, three- 
down rule, every effort was made to get a fast man loose, 
but under subsequent rules there has been a consistent 
effort to turn out backfields able to add the runner's length 
to small, but consistent gains. Considering that the ball 
is not held head high, the back of reasonable stature should 
be able to add very nearly a yard to his run if he is big and 
strong enough to trouble the individual tackier, and this 
means, of course, that the average necessary for a first 
down may be markedly reduced simply by picking the right 
type of back. 

The big man, if he is quick enough to make the sharp 
turn so valuable when carrying the ball, can meet his tackier 
head on, and so carry on, over him, whereas the lighter man 
is of necessity stopped the moment he strikes the secondary 
defense; and if he depends upon wide end skirting is apt 
to be thrown for a loss. Even a small team, therefore, 
should have at least one big, rugged man in the backfield, 
even at the cost of removing him from the line. Men of 
the Wendell or Heston type are the darlings of the 
coaches. 

The next problem in selecting material will be its value 
in the interference. Here, too, the big man is in demand, 
for even if slightly lacking in speed, he will be able to make 
up for it in the power of his lunge into the tackier. In the 
quick dashes just over or inside tackle or guard, it is not 
the number of men preceding the runner, but their power 
when they strike, that makes or mars the play. Their 



58 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

work will be highly individual, as indeed, has been most of 
the effective interference of recent years. 

It would be well for the head coach to decide, when pick- 
ing out his men, whether he intends using a guard in the 
interference, for this will make a difference in his selections. 
The value of a guard so used — when the interference is not 
made individually beyond the line of scrimmage — is prob- 
lematical. Some of the best coaches in the country believe 
in swinging the guard around, while others, equally capable, 
maintain that it is suicidal. The interferer, whether a line 
man or a back, faces the necessity of accounting for one 
opponent without assistance, and if necessary, going to 
earth with him, leaving his back to fight on alone. Here 
is where weight and strength count and count heavily. 

Just how important a factor was the heavy back in the 
remarkable season of 1912 may be gained from a study of 
the Harvard-Yale game that year, when Wendell and 
Hardwick of Harvard at times put out of the play men on 
the defense who hitherto had used up two interferers. 
Percy Haughton, the head coach, was able to build up an 
extremely advanced and effective attack, since he had 
backs who often could do the work in interference allotted 
in former years to a tackle and end, or a pair of backs. 
This was a tremendous advantage and a great factor in 
Harvard's success against Princeton and Yale. 

In the course of progress toward a touchdown the backs 
that are worked into the interference are expected to put 
out of the play not only the backs of the secondary defense, 
but line men who may be left uncovered in the course of 
the run, and these line men are often uncovered nowadays, 
since the old method of boxing the defensive tackle with 
the tackle and end is no longer in such high favor. The 
tackle in the modern game is often called upon to put the 
defensive end out of the play, while an interfering back 
and the attacking end take care of the line man, generally 



SELECTING AND BUILDING THE TEAM 59 

the tackle, and occasionally the guard or "roving" center. 
It often happens that the back is expected to handle the 
defensive tackle alone, which is something of an under- 
taking for any but a big and rugged player. 

It will be seen readily enough, I think, that in attack the 
value of weight and strength is hardly to be overestimated, 
and that the big men who are not too slow, or who can be 
speeded up by hard coaching, must have the call in the 
backfield as well as in the line. 

The needs of the defense, save when facing the forward 
pass, where speed and agility count, and in running back 
kicks, would seem to be about the same. The tackle is 
obliged to bear the brunt of the attack, as has been the case 
for many a year and under all sets of rules, but against a 
more consistent running game, with its added down, there 
is more work cut out for him than has been the case since the 
days of the massplays and the heavy tandem. In almost 
every play there is the threat of the forward pass, short or 
long, of the quick kick under the line, the kick from the 
regular formation, with the kicker five yards behind the line 
of scrimmage, or the long, sweeping run from the standard 
kick formation. In order to cover all this, the defensive 
back will have to take plenty of room behind his line, and 
get out pretty far laterally, so that the burden of breaking 
up the play and nailing the runner falls heavily upon the 
shoulders of the tackle and end, but more especially upon 
the tackle. 

This hard working player experiences a sense of loneliness 
greater than in many a year, for the attack has three cracks 
at him instead of two before being forced to kick, and the 
wear and tear is great, despite the fact that the player is 
relieved of the duty of standing up against the massed attack 
of some years ago. Whether the end plays the smashing 
game, going in fast to break up plays in their inception, or 
runs in a short distance and waits for the play to develop, 



60 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

his work is increased almost to the same extent as the 
tackle's. He too should be big and rugged if he is to stand 
up under the hammering. 

The same arguments apply to the defensive backs, who 
because of the necessity of covering a great deal of ground 
against the forward pass, and quick kicking, must come up 
fast to the assistance of the tackles, must stop a heavy back 
if the tackles are smothered in the interference, and because 
of the smaller average gain required, must stop him in such 
a way that he will not be able to add his own length to the 
run. This means heavier work than under the rules in the 
years immediately preceding the season of 1912. 

One of the most important positions to settle as early as 
possible is that of quarterback, which will be occupied by 
the man who is to run the team under fire. Happy the 
coach who knows that he will have a quick and logical 
thinker or two to depend upon from the outset. Many a 
quarter, promising so far as speed, running back kicks, and 
handling the ball were concerned, has lost his place to a 
man who has had little more at command than sheer head- 
work and the ability to inspire his men. Thus a plan of 
campaign built around a physically strong quarter will have 
to give way to a scheme that depends upon a man who can 
use superior headwork. The diagnostician, who is also 
something of a pest to the bigger men of the squad, is usually 
the right man for quarter — the man full of brains and fight, a 
none too common combination on the gridiron. 

There will be times when because of some injury to a star 
or pair of stars, the plan of campaign will have to be re- 
modelled early in the season, or perhaps even late in October; 
but as a rule the good coach completes his plans in September 
and sticks to them thereafter as closely as possible. Better 
to be defeated by a small college team than make a hasty 
change in the campaign that leads up to the big games. 
The following of this system is what sometimes makes the 



SELECTING AND BUILDING THE TEAM 61 

big elevens appear rather ordinary in their early games, 
only to find them making a remarkable showing in the final 
clash. All other things being nearly equal, the better 
material will win in the long run, and it is the glory of the 
game that it is swinging so close to a standard as to permit of 
this result. 

Roughly speaking, heavy material lends itself especially 
to the running game, while light is especially adapted to the 
" loose ball" style, which means plenty of kicking and 
forward passing, mixed up with wide end runs. The advan- 
tage of the heavy material is, however, that it can be trained 
in both styles, if it is well equipped with brains, and varia- 
tions in the standard play need be made only in providing 
a special " punch" for points in line and backfield that show 
especial initial strength. With big men the coach must 
resign himself to slow development, while in the case of 
fast, light material, the problem is to keep the eleven from 
getting on edge too soon, or to hold it there sometimes a 
week or more after it arrives at the top of its powers. 

In most cases I believe it a good plan for the head coach 
to take his squad to the training table as soon as possible, 
in order that the men may become thoroughly acquainted, 
and in the interests of that "football family" of which I 
spoke some pages back. A great many football players are 
keenly susceptible to a system of rewards and punishments, 
and the training table provides very neatly for both. It 
is not so important that the diet be especially looked after 
early in the season as that the " aristocracy of the' varsity" 
as some clever coach has called it, be maintained at all 
costs. Football, Varsity caliber, is for the fit and the 
strong, and whatever those of us who believe that gridiron 
stars are rewarded above their deserts may say, the atmos- 
phere of the training table makes for efficiency in team 
play, and in football generally. 



CHAPTER V 

COACHING SYSTEMS AND ASSETS — SCOUTS AND "BLEACHER " 

COACHES 

No coaching system can endure that is not founded upon 
truth-telling among the men who have the team in their 
hands. When one man of the staff stands alone in his 
opinion about certain measures or certain plays, there should 
be nothing in the attitude of his associates that would lead 
him to think that it might have been better after all had he 
fallen in promptly with the consensus of opinion, relieving 
himself of all responsibility and retaining that connection 
with a team that is so highly prized by many a graduate. 
Nor should a man who is personally unpopular be deprived 
of his right to speak, which, presumably, is guarded by his 
connection with the university or college and the broad 
democracy that should be the keynote of college sport. 
Many a man who is "persona non grata to the main body of 
the coaches may have the remedy for something that has 
afflicted the team, and his advice on technique may be the 
very thing that is needed in the darkest hour before the big 
game. 

Unfortunately older men are quite as apt to be moved by 
friendships or antagonisms as less experienced undergradu- 
ates. Their influence after graduation is to them quite as 
great a treasure as their influence in the class in undergradu- 
ate days, and I venture to say that it is harder to harmonize 
a lot of graduates of varied interests than it is to get together 
a lot of boys over whom still hangs the glamour of the great 
university. A large coaching staff is too often apt to break 

62 



COACHING SYSTEMS 63 

up into cliques. Almost every big Eastern university has 
had experiences of this sort, and they are apt to recur at 
what are very close to stated periods. When disorganiza- 
tion of this kind occurs it generally means the loss of the 
big game, although rescue may come at the eleventh hour, 
and in a general falling off in the system from which ib 
may require two or three years to recover. 

The absolutely ideal coaching system has yet to be 
discovered. Dean Briggs of Harvard has made a plea for 
the " practical idealist/ ' and it is indeed such a man that 
every university is seeking, consciously or unconsciously. 
He is, however, as rare as the white rhinoceros, and until 
he appears, and in numbers, coaching systems, like most 
other university activities, will be no more than human. 

The nearest that any university seems to have been able 
to come to an ideal is the institution and support of graduate 
coaching, and when such coaching turns out successful 
teams there seems to be no quarrel with it. But let it 
plunge into a year or two of disaster, and there is at once a 
wail from all quarters, graduate and undergraduate alike. 
Certain of the larger institutions are able to weather these, 
storms and maintain their systems, but those institutions 
that have not years of football behind them are forced to 
look elsewhere for their technique. It is said of them in 
such circumstances that they have "lost the dope," and 
that means they must get it back through outside aid. 
The larger universities with years of tradition behind them 
know that they will only have to shuffle the graduate com- 
bination and deal out new sets until the right one is found. 

Presumably — this from the viewpoint of the idealist 
who believes there should be pleasure in coaching as well as 
in the game — any former Varsity man should have the right 
of contact with the team, or at least with the coaches 
handling it. The particular squad has been chosen, of 
course, but the idea is that any old player who returns in 



64 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

the course of the fall should be called upon for his advice. 
It sometimes happens, however, that someone of these old- 
timers has played on a badly coached, and badly beaten 
eleven, in which case his advice will not be worth 
much on the face of it. The coaches who are in contact 
with the team should be, as a rule, men who have made 
something of a success of their own football careers. It 
has been said that nothing succeeds like success, but it 
might well be added that nothing impresses like success, 
and this impression goes a long way with the men who are 
trying for the team. 

One of the greatest problems of the graduate system, 
therefore, has been to make use of men who on the surface 
are useless and at the same time maintain their interest in 
their university and its teams by carefully avoiding driving 
them away. The problem has been solved to some extent 
by turning them into " bleacher " coaches and scouts, of 
whom I shall have more to say farther on. 

There is one more problem of the graduate system that 
has made a deal of trouble from time to time and that is 
the question whether the head field coach should be selected 
from the ranks of the younger men or from among the old- 
timers. Yale has recently abandoned the system of making 
the captain of one season the field coach the following year, 
and other universities gave it up long ago. The system 
survived at Yale as long as it did probably because the 
young head coach received such solid and capable support 
and usually proved tractable. Any football man will tell 
you that no man who has played football four years at 
college, and has had no further experience is fit to put in 
charge of a great coaching system. He makes a good coach 
for another and smaller college with great frequency, but 
it is certain that he has not mastered the sum of the football 
knowledge of his own university's system and is therefore 
not able to make the best of the advice he gets from the old- 



COACHING SYSTEMS 65 

timers, or distinguish always between good advice and bad. 
Furthermore it is quite natural for him to turn to the younger 
body of coaches for this advice, and overlook the ripe 
wisdom of the men of years ago. 

Let us suppose that Smith, having been captain the year 
before, has been chosen field coach. In selecting his staff 
what more natural than that he should turn to Jones, a 
team mate of the year before, whom he knew intimately off 
the gridiron as well as on. At this stage Brown, an old- 
timer, steps in and offers help. If Jones and Brown dis- 
agree on some vital point it is safe to say that Smith will 
accept the decision of Jones as final. Brown means less to 
him than Jones. Brown may be right, but Jones is younger, 
presumably more up to date, and already has won Smith's 
confidence. But should Smith in his dilemma refuse to 
accept the opinion of either man as final he probably will 
turn to the oldest graduate who has had the steadiest con- 
nection with the team, whether as an active coach or a 
theorist. Both of the other men are apt to resent it, and in 
the case of the old-timer he may feel that the man turned to 
has had quite enough to do with the game at his university 
in the past. Promptly there is trouble, the older men split 
up into rival camps, and the last stage of that young field 
coach is worse than the first. 

On the other hand should the field coach be an old-timer 
he may be in reality a trifle unprogressive, as was the case 
in many of the larger institutions at the time the first 
radical changes were made in the rules, and he also may be 
quite as apt to gather around him men of his own time as 
the younger man. Somewhere, then, the link between 
the older and the younger coaches must be found, and when 
such a man is discovered it usually happens that his personal 
business is in that stage that requires all his time, and he 
has fewer spare days at hand than either the younger or 
the older man. What happens then? The man in question 
5 



66 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

either lets his business go to pieces, or seeks indirectly to 
make money out of his connection with the eleven. No 
matter how it may be glossed over this latter move is always 
discovered sooner or later, and it leads to a state of unrest 
that eventuates in open mutiny. It is this more than any- 
thing else that has made it necessary to make football 
coaching a business, as at Yale, Harvard, and many other 
institutions where a salary is paid, and to leave no stone 
unturned in the effort to dignify that business. 

When it is remembered that the head coach has a tre- 
mendous influence over the characters of the youngsters 
under him it will readily be seen that any steps to dignify 
his salaried position are well worth while. Complaint has 
been made by the well-meaning gentlemen who occupy the 
sheltered situations of editorial writers that the football 
coach draws a larger salary than the learned professor. But 
the coach is giving some of the best years of his life to coach- 
ing with the certainty that after a little time he will have to 
abandon it and go back to some other business, whereas the 
professor is already settled into his life work. I have no 
desire here to revive an ancient controversy but merely to 
emphasize the difficulty of finding the right man, and to 
explain why he earns what he receives, and to drive home 
my belief that it is an honorable profession. 

There are instances in which it has been possible to com- 
bine coaching with faculty duties, and this is an excellent 
system, one, indeed, that seems to have worked superlatively 
well at Andover. In any case it must be remembered that 
the field coach is in closer contact with a larger section of 
the undergraduates than the non-coaching member of the 
faculty, and I know any number of instances in which he 
has helped mould the character of the young undergraduate 
for the better. He is teaching a game that should bring 
out the finest qualities in a young man, and has an opportu- 
nity enjoyed by few other educators. A coach of high char- 






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COACHING SYSTEMS 67 

acter, and there are many in the field to-day, will go a long 
way in patching up the old feud between the faculty and 
the undergraduate athlete. 

The permanent field coach usually requires about a year 
in which to get rid of the old methods, and by the end of 
that time is able to coagulate the best graduate coaching 
around himself, not barring the apparently useless old- 
timer entirely, or treating him with scant courtesy, but 
giving him a chance to help in one way or another without 
actually getting in the way, while binding the really useful 
veteran and the best of the younger men to him with hoops 
of steel. 

If this head coach of whom I am speaking is wary, he will 
see to it that there is enough of the younger element on his 
coaching staff to keep the undergraduate body closely in 
touch with the squad, for it is fatal to have the team "get 
away from" the students, for whose benefit, after all, the 
game is played. 

The " bleacher" coaches and the scouts need not feel that 
they are any the less valuable if they are not called upon for 
active work on the field, for the work of two of these 
" bleacher" coaches had a great deal to do in winning a 
game against Harvard for Yale not so many years ago. 
The "bleacher" coach sits in the stand, pretty well up to- 
ward the top, at his own field, and as a scout, occupies the 
same position at other fields. Of course a Harvard captain 
and head coach will go together at least once in the fall to 
see a Yale team play, and vice versa, but there are usually 
enough capable volunteer scouts to keep an eye on the most 
prominent rival throughout the season. 

This is by no means a case of secret espionage — scouts 
and coaches of the big elevens no longer stoop to that sort 
of thing — but open visiting, and as a rule the visitors are 
quite welcome. Apropos of this a good and a true story 
is told of the visit of the head coach of an Army eleven to 



68 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

Annapolis the week before the annual game. The Army man 
had hoped to get one last look at the Navy team in action 
against Pennsylvania State College. His disgust was great 
when, from the side lines, he saw the Navy sending an 
entire eleven of substitutes against the visiting team. 
After the game, at the officers' club, the Navy coaches 
welcomed their rival strategist and asked, "Well, what did 
you think of it?" 

" Think of it," retorted the deeply pained visitor, "why 
I came down to see this team of yours that they tell us is 
such a wonder and you send out the second eleven. Is that 
what you call Southern hospitality?" 

The capable scout watches not only elevens that his own 
university is to meet, but also has a look at other elevens 
that seem to be doing promising work. He turns in all 
the information, or "dope," he can get, good, bad and 
indifferent, and it is weeded out by the head coach and his 
assistants. But of course the principal excuse for his 
existence is keeping an eye on the most important rival. 

A few years ago two Yale scouts sat in the Harvard 
stadium watching game after game played by the Crimson. 
The active Yale coaches had seen the Harvard team, but 
these scouts picked up some valuable points that had been 
overlooked by their superiors. Minot was doing the kicking 
that year for Harvard, and he was kicking well. The Yale 
men made a study of his work, and after a time became so 
expert that they could tell nearly every time just about 
where the ball would land. Minot had a "drift" in direc- 
tion, to be compared with the drift of a rifled gun, something 
that in shooting is corrected by the rear sight. The scouts 
went back to New Haven and found that in Yale's system of 
defense against the kicking game, Philbin, the strongest 
runner back of kicks that year on any eleven, was so placed 
that Minot would be kicking away from him much of the 
time. In consequence of this scouting a change was made, 



COACHING SYSTEMS 69 

and Philbin was so placed that Minot's punts would prac- 
tically come to him. Philbin's running back of kicks in 
the Harvard- Yale game that year was a tremendous factor 
in Yale's victory. 

In studying their own eleven the " bleacher" coaches will 
pick up many a little point that needs correction, and that 
is not so readily discovered by the active coaches who are 
standing on the tield on the level with the team. Natural 
tendencies of the players are accentuated when seen from 
this high position, as explained in the chapter dealing with 
football for the spectator, and mistakes in judgment, 
especially in the positions assumed by the secondary defense, 
stand out clearly. 

These scouts and "bleacher" coaches when carefully 
handled by the field coach, are valuable assets to any team, 
but at least once a year there should be a general exodus of 
the active coaches to the field where the principal rival is 
to play a really hard game. The rival will of course confine 
itself to the simplest brand of football, and will show nothing 
new, but by the time a really hard game is reached, the team 
should be well enough together so that it will reflect in a 
general way the type of the coaching. Some inkling of the 
plan adopted to cover certain parts of the field have to be 
shown, and if the eleven is to make much of the run from 
kick formation, for instance, it will be apt to be fore- 
shadowed. I do not recall many instances in which one 
eleven profited in the final game through advance knowledge 
of any "trick" plays planned by its rival, but a general 
idea of the opponent's methods has frequently come in 
handy. Special defensive formations may be devised 
against especially dangerous men on the opposing eleven, 
and if there is a drop-kicker to be faced a study is made of 
the protection afforded him in the hope of planning some way 
in which to block his kicks. In 1901, for instance, both 
Princeton and Harvard went to extremes when menaced by 



70 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

drop-kickers in their game, putting the secondary defense 
right up on the line in the hope of blocking the kick. Two 
kicks were blocked by this risky method, and one of them 
was turned into a touchdown when Sanford B. White of 
Princeton picked up the ball and ran eighty yards or so. 

One of the greatest assets of a big coaching system is the 
number of graduates who are coaching smaller college teams 
both East and West. These men do a great deal of ex- 
perimenting, and their elevens also frequently play against 
teams that will eventually meet their own alma mater. 
They send in full reports on the work of these outside 
teams, and get from the eleven they are coaching pointers 
on the strength and weakness of teams that are to be 
opponents of their own university, which can be gained in 
no other way. It may be, too, that some one of these men 
has struck out for himself in building an attack and has made 
a success of plays that have not been tried or understood at 
his own university. In such a case he can teach the plays 
to some emissary from his own university, and thus help 
the team, even in the eleventh hour. 

Dr. H. L. Williams, for instance, who has been coaching 
for some years at Minnesota, has been one of Yale's great 
assets. Active coaches are sent from New Haven to study 
his methods and his plays, and it was his shift play brought 
East by T. L. Shevlin, the famous Yale end, that not so 
long ago enabled a disorganized Blue eleven to get to- 
gether and defeat Princeton and fight Harvard to a drawn 
and scoreless battle. The shift as applied to the Yale 
team was not made exactly as it was at Minnesota, but it 
employed the "jump" principle that is the foundation of 
many of the later shifts. 

Yale and Pennsylvania have led in recent years in the 
number of men who are coaching other teams, and these 
men have been of considerable assistance to the active 
coaches at New Haven and Philadelphia, while Princeton's 



COACHING SYSTEMS 71 

outside coaching has not been so noticeable. In W. W. 
Roper and "Phil" King the Tigers have two men who have 
had a great deal of outside experience, handling teams in 
the middle West, and these men have a broad view of the 
game. Dartmouth is also well to the front in supplying 
coaches for other colleges, and this has proved a help at 
Hanover, for because of the geographical isolation of the 
Green at Dartmouth coaches have not had many oppor- 
tunities to see the work of other elevens. 

There has been in recent years an interchange of opinion 
among coaches both East and West that has been one of 
the delightful features of the game. Fielding H. Yost of 
Michigan is a frequent visitor in the East, where he picks up 
pointers on the latest methods as applied in that section, 
while at the same time talking freely about his own ideas of 
open play. The Yale game at West Point has always 
brought together more coaches than any other early season 
contest in the East, and these men have talked more frankly 
and freely than was the case many years ago. 

There is probably no one man who knows all the football 
there is to know, and the interchange of opinion has made 
for better football all over the country. It is safe to say 
that the average coach, even of the smaller colleges, knows 
more football than was the case ten years ago, and it may 
be added that his mind is more open than it used to be. The 
first year the forward pass came into the game the coaches 
at Dartmouth clung to the old-fashioned line-breaking style 
of football and paid little or no attention to the new open 
method, while the Princeton coaches experimented with the 
new plays and made much of them. The result was that 
when the two teams came together Dartmouth was badly 
beaten even though the material, considered individually, 
was quite as good as Princeton's. The Dartmouth coaches 
of to-day do not make that sort of mistake, for they are 
keen to learn what the other elevens are doing and what 



72 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

the other coaches think about the more advanced style of 
football. 

It is the duty of a capable field coach to keep in touch 
with men of his own university who have gone out to coach 
other colleges and to seek their aid and the benefit of their 
observations. These men should be and in most cases are 
made welcome when they return to their alma mater, for 
they have been learning since their graduation, and being 
obliged to coach without much if any assistance, usually 
have attained to a broad knowledge of the game. 

Most football squads under modern coaching systems 
consist of the first or Varsity eleven, and the "scrubs," the 
latter term embracing all other players. In some of the 
more progressive institutions of the East, however, an at- 
tempt has been made to get something like organization in 
the squad that is left after a tentative eleven has been 
chosen. A second eleven that is a constant quantity, with 
its own signals and plays, will have a greater esprit de 
eorps than a loosely organized "scrub," and may even play 
outside games against the smaller colleges and the larger 
schools. At Harvard, since the advent of Haughton, there 
have been practically three teams, the Varsity, the Varsity 
substitutes — a full team — and the second eleven. The 
system seems to have worked well, and to have provided 
the first eleven with the necessary strong opposition. The 
fight for positions under such a system seems to be quite as 
earnest as under the old method, and Harvard's elevens 
of recent years have reaped the benefits. 

The old term of "scrub" is beginning to lose its sting. 
To play on the "scrub" did not mean that a man was a 
poor football player, merely that he was not quite up to 
Varsity calibre. A well organized second eleven gets more 
rewards for faithful work than was the case in the past. 
Were the second elevens of all the big universities to meet 
annually there would be some fine exhibitions of football. 



COACHING SYSTEMS 73 

Another help in the way of organization has been the one- 
year rule that keeps freshmen off the Varsity teams of most 
of the big institutions. Freshmen of Varsity calibre often 
have been extremely difficult to handle. The glamour of 
Varsity football too often has gone to their heads and 
spoiled what otherwise would have been promising gridiron 
careers. Under the present system the freshmen teams have 
a competent coach, and achieve that organization so much 
to be desired in any squad. In tuning up a Varsity team 
for its big game it is a good plan to send it against the 
freshmen now and then for a full game. These are players 
with whose work the Varsity men are unfamiliar, and they 
get as much benefit out of such practice as they would from 
playing a game with another college team. 

The next step in this general development, I believe, will 
be intracollegiate football, somewhat on the Andover system. 
Meetings between the various colleges of any university 
may be nearly as earnestly fought as intercollegiate games, 
but they provide the greatest fun for the greatest number, 
and football is too good a game to be confined to those 
who are seeking the Varsity letter. Both Andover and the 
Army have shown what can be done in the way of developing 
their own players, even from third and fourth rank to first. 

At West Point there has been a third eleven known as the 
Cullom Hall team, from the fact that it practised in front 
of that memorial building, and this third team has been 
under competent coaching from the beginning of every 
season. The team plays games against the best school 
elevens along the Hudson, and has made an enviable record. 
Occasionally the team goes in against the Varsity and gives 
it excellent practice, while from time to time one of its 
players has been taken over by the Varsity squad. In 
teams of this class, where the coaching is of the first order, 
there is every chance of development, and the mere organiza- 
tion of such a team helps the football "atmosphere" at any 



74 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

institution. The more teams the merrier. They keep the 
non-playing undergraduate closer to the game than was the 
case years ago, and they will be factors in producing, in 
years to come, a highly intelligent group of spectators. 

One of the best results of the Andover system is the fact 
that the boys have learned to do a deal of thinking for them- 
selves. Sheer necessity, under such a system, has spread 
the knowledge of generalship and made the game attractive 
to the main body of the students. All these things come 
under the head of "assets" that are welcomed by any coach. 
The coach who goes from a great university to a small 
college often complains that he has not enough men in the 
field to provide two elevens for practice, and that as a result 
he sometimes has to play one side of the 'varsity line against 
the other and resort to other makeshifts in order to accom- 
plish anything. The remedy for this state of affairs, I 
think, lies in the development of class football, and he is 
a wise coach who begins building up such a system in his 
first year's work, even if it robs him of some of the time he 
thinks should be spent with the Varsity. Defeats will be 
in order at the start, but in the end the system will yield 
victories, and in any event well grounded teams that will 
play good football whether winning or losing. 



CHAPTER VI 

SIMPLE ATTACK AND DEFENSE — STANDARD FORMATIONS 

Throughout October the big elevens play only the sim- 
plest football, in order that the material may be brought to 
a high state of efficiency without, through the medium of 
complicated and advanced formations and plays, taking the 
minds of the men off their individual work, which at this 
stage of the campaign is paramount. But since through 
this month many games, perhaps one or two rather hard 
ones, will be played, the team must have a set of fairly 
effective plays. On attack six, or even fewer, of the funda- 
mental formations ought to suffice, with a simple kick for- 
mation, one or two forward passes, and a fake kick. The 
greater part of the time of most of the men will be put in 
on the defense, for the first object of a football team is to 
keep its opponents from scoring. 

Right here there is a sharp division of opinion between 
East and West. The Westerners argue that "the best of- 
fense is the best defense," while the Easterners maintain 
that, if an eleven can count upon keeping its opponent from 
scoring, nothing worse can happen to it than a scoreless 
tie. When Western teams meet the Western theory seems 
to be satisfactory since both are coached on the same funda- 
mental line, but it frequently happens that when a good 
Eastern defense meets a good Western attack there is a 
sudden cessation of Western scoring. The rule does not 
hold good in games between Michigan and Pennsylvania 
since this particular Eastern team has for many years been 

75 



76 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

noted for a fast and versatile attack rather than a sound 
defense. 

There is no doubt, however, that in recent years the 
Westerners have done more in the way of building up a 
defense than when the game was young in that section. 
It has been a slow process, for attack has always had an 
extreme fascination for the hustling Westerners, and the 
other side of the game, apparently failing to enlist much 
interest, has not been sufficiently emphasized. The East 
may learn a few things from the West on attack, while on 
the defense the situation is reversed. 

There is a growing feeling among the best coaches that 
both on attack and defense, since the shifts have gained 
rapidly in popularity, and since the defense must shift 
rapidly to meet the shifted attack, thus bringing the defen- 
sive players opposite new faces from time to time, it is a 
good plan to remove the emphasis from the nomenclature 
of the positions. In a shifted attack and defense the defen- 
sive tackle will find himself sometimes facing an attacking 
guard, an attacking center, or even an attacking end. If 
he has rooted in his mind the fact that he is a right or left 
tackle, as the case may be, instead of an all-round forward, 
to be played wherever the shifting fortunes of the game 
command, there will often be a hesitancy in finding his 
place, and a consequent falling off in his efficiency as an 
individual. 

He will be apt to take his position with relation to another 
player in his own line, rather than with reference to the 
changed position of the attacking forwards. A small mat- 
ter, it would seem at first glance, but a formidable one in 
the light of practical experience. Much the same thing 
is true of the attack. Under modern conditions the dis- 
tinction between right and left halfback is often wiped out, 
and the four men behind the line become simply plain 
backs to be used in varied formations regardless of the side 



• SIMPLE ATTACK AND DEFENSE 77 

of the line behind which they take their positions. On 
defense the backs usually follow the right and left system, 
but the forwards often find themselves well out of the normal, 
balanced line-up in which they began the game. 

There are occasions, too, when because of individual 
peculiarities, the guard and center change places on the 
defense, or upon which it is deemed advisable to "twin up" 
guards or tackles in order to strengthen the weaker side 
of the line. The concensus of the best opinion, therefore, 
leans to the numbering of the positions, so that the men are 
called upon by number rather than by title. But since the 
balanced formation is still very much in the game, it would 
be well to use even numbers on the right side of the center 
and odd numbers on the left. This system has been followed 
in the accompanying diagrams. The center is numbered 1, 
and the left guard, tackle and end are numbered 3, 5, and 
7, respectively, while the right guard, tackle and end are 
numbered from the center outward, 2, 4, and 6. Left 
halfback is No. 9, right halfback No. 8, fullback No. 10, 
and quarterback No. 11. Thus, Jones is told to "go in at 
No. 5" instead of at left tackle, and Smith is ordered to 
"go in at No. 11 " instead of quarterback, and so on through- 
out the team. These numbers may or may not be worked 
into the signal system, but I am not convinced of the 
advisability of numbering the players for signal purposes, 
and believe that the plays should be numbered, save in the 
extremely early part of the season, when numbers for the 
players and the openings may be used to advantage, thus 
making matters as simple as possible for the candidates, 
who have enough to think of in absorbing individual coach- 
ing without becoming involved in a complicated signal 
system. 

In considering attack and defense of the fundamental 
order I shall follow the Eastern system of beginning with 
the defense. There is less clash of opinion both East and 



78 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

West over defense than over offense. The principal dis- 
agreement seems to rise out of the system of using the 
center and the ends. Some coaches prefer to keep the center 
always up in the line, depending upon his work in breaking 
through and closing up openings in his own position and 
through those occupied by the guards on either side of him. 
Others cling to the theory of the "loose" or " roving" 
center, at least between the two twenty-yard lines and on 
the first three downs. Nearly all coaches send the center 
up into line when it is obvious that the opponents are about 
to kick. 

There is a great deal to be said for the "loose center" theory, 
especially if the player in question be not too heavy, and 
very fast, as well as quick in diagnosing the plays. In the 
diagram, Fig. 1, the normal attack and defense formations 
of two teams playing the "balanced game" are shown, and 
in this instance the White center is playing in the loose, or 
roving style made famous by men like Congdon and Ket- 
cham of Yale, Grant of Harvard, as well as Torrey and 
other well-known Pennsylvania pivot men. Indeed, so far 
as I can learn, the credit for the innovation belongs to the 
Quakers, though in that I may be mistaken. It requires 
no more than a glance at the diagram to realize the advan- 
tage in range of the "loose" position, provided the defensive 
center be clever enough not to be drawn away from his 
immediate post by false attack, and fast enough to get out 
and tackle as far as the ends. 

I do not recall any man in recent years who has made 
more of this style of play than Ketcham, the husky Yale 
captain of 1913. A natural diagnostician, he was helped 
greatly by the post he assumed in that it enabled him to 
look over the line from his "stand-up" position and get a 
fair idea of the ultimate as well as the immediate objective 
of the play. A large proportion of the line plays that go 
outside of guard are temporarily checked, and the roving 



SIMPLE ATTACK AND DEFENSE 79 

center has time to get up to the mass and lend efficient aid 
in bending the play back or piling it up. It was Ketcham, 
indeed, who in 1911 performed the all but incredible feat 
of catching a kick blocked by his own team, which is cer- 
tainly a stellar example of covering ground from the pivot 
position. 

Roving center play is not for the man who tips the scale 
above 200 pounds or so, and the player who is not gifted 
with speed remotely comparable with that of the startled 
antelope would do well to adhere to the orthodox 
method. 

There is a radical change in the situation on the fourth 
down, when the attacking team will be compelled to kick, 
or back of the 20-yard line, where every effort will have to 
be made to break up plays behind the scrimmage line, and 
where the attack will be less given to attempting what are 
known as the "long gainers," plays that if they make ground 
at all are apt to earn all the way from five to fifteen yards. 
In such circumstances the roving should give way to the 
fixed center, for in the orthodox position the center has the 
shortest path to the runner when the play is in its incipiency, 
and may depend upon his guards to make a hole for him and 
let him through on top of the attacking quarterback. It is 
behind the 20-yard line that it is advisable to bend every 
effort toward throwing the attacking team for losses, thus 
hurrying the inevitable attempt for a field goal, and perhaps 
compelling it from a position that presents an awkward 
angle to the kicker. In this zone everything possible 
should be done to force the hand of the attack, and the 
center should be in the forefront of the battle. 

The possibilities of the roving center in other parts of 
the field, like the possibilities of the general "stand-up" 
defense, depend upon the possibilities of the individual 
player. The fast, strong man, who can keep his feet, may 
stand up and may play the loose defense; all others would 



80 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

do well to get down low, keeping their backs straight, and 
" get into it." 

In the diagram of the line-up the men on the attacking 
line are shown at even intervals the one from the other, 
which is the customary style, save that the three center 
men are often more closely bunched than is possible to 
show clearly in the drawing. The defensive guards are 
well outside the positions occupied by their opponents, 
and the defensive tackles, taking plenty of room, are always 
careful to post themselves well outside the extremities of 
the opposing line. Save in a flank movement of the attack, 
which in football is an end or tackle run, and in which the 
full force of the secondary defense swings into action, the 
attack naturally works along interior lines, and this is ac- 
cepted by the defense, which seeks to envelop the attacking 
force. The fundamental idea is to close up the attack, shut 
it up like a fan, and the tackles are relied upon to keep the 
play turned in. This is the generally accepted theory. 

The clash among the coaches comes in the consideration 
of the best use of the ends. There are two radically different 
styles of end play, the "smashing" and the "waiting" end. 
With halfbacks playing outside the extremities of the 
defensive line, it is contended that the tackle may be de- 
pended upon to take care of the plays that swing wide, while 
the end goes straight in, careful to keep his feet as long as 
possible, to tear the play apart in its incipiency. There are 
thus two separate impacts with the attack, the first starting 
as fast as the play and meeting it behind the scrimmage line 
and while still in the process of formation, the second meet- 
ing it after it has been disorganized to some extent by the 
end, when it reaches the line of scrimmage. This double 
impact is in itself immensely effective according to the 
devotees of the smashing end style, and has the added 
advantage of acting as a double delayer in the event that 
the play cannot be stopped entirely by the forwards, thus 



o 




SIMPLE ATTACK AND DEFENSE 81 

giving the secondary defense an excellent chance to get up 
to the line of scrimmage from positions pretty well back of 
it. 

The theory has been pretty thoroughly tested in import- 
ant games by first-class elevens, and has proved sound, to 
my way of thinking. In the diagram, Fig 1, the course of 
the smashing ends, who play close to their tackles, is indi- 
cated by the solid arrows. Proponents of the waiting end 
style (their course indicated in the diagram, Fig. 1, by the 
dotted arrows) claim greater safety for their method, and 
maintain that by this system more plays will be stopped 
at the line by ends who do actual tackling with greater 
frequency than by the smashing wing men who, when not 
in position to tackle, must devote their entire attention to 
disorganizing the play as much as possible, so that nothing 
but a wreck shall reach the line. 

Now it happens that even in the normal attacking forma- 
tions the aggressive eleven will " waste' ' an end, in the hope 
of drawing wide a tackle who is playing the standard 
defensive position. This process will seldom trouble a well- 
coached defense, for the experienced tackle will refuse to 
follow his man out, but is often a stumbling block to smaller, 
especially schoolboy elevens, which seem to have a horror of 
letting a man go free outside the extremity of the line. As 
a rule the end should follow out a short distance, using his 
judgment as to when to let his man go free, the tackle 
standing fast, but should two members of the attacking line 
edge out, the end should take them just as far as they will 
go, for the defense is then wasting only one man to two of 
the attacking force, better than a fair exchange. A wasted 
end goes out for one of two purposes, as a rule; either to 
take a forward pass, or to act as a bluff to call attention 
away from the actual play. It will be seen, therefore, that 
to send a defensive end out with him is to waste one of the 
strongest features of the defense against a man who may 

6 



82 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

have nothing to do with the play, and who at the worst will 
handle a forward pass, the defense against which is entrusted 
to the halfback, who has sufficient range to cover the loose 
end if necessary while the attacking team is making the 
preliminary delay which is one of the fundamental features 
of all forward passes. With the exception rioted, therefore, 
the fundamental rule of line defense is to keep the tackles 
outside of the extremities of the attacking line and the ends 
close to them. 

Since the restriction has been removed from the kick 
there is the threat of at least a short kick in every play, and 
since the necessary delay to make perfect the forward pass 
requires only that a member of the attacking backfield run 
back to a point five yards behind his own line and that 
" eligibles " move down the field, it may also be assumed that 
the forward pass threat also exists in every play. This 
means that the secondary defense will have to take plenty 
of room in which to work, thus being prepared to meet every 
possible form of attack. 

The loose center stations himself about a yard to two 
yards back of the line, the fullback, usually the heaviest 
of the backs, about four yards from the line, and the half- 
backs from ten to twelve yards behind the line of scrimmage, 
and outside the ends of the defensive line. The quarterback, 
the last man in the defense, posts himself from 25 to 30 
yards back of the scrimmage line. These relative positions 
are shown in the diagram, Fig. 1. 

A defense so arranged is the nearest to perfection of 
anything I have seen against the normal attack. Defense 
against the kicking game and against shifts is treated at 
length in another chapter. It is necessary here only to 
emphasize the fact that the defensive players take position 
mainly with reference to the attack and with only moderate 
regard to each other. Such a system provides an elastic 
defense that should be able to meet any normal play and 



FicL.i 



SIMPLE ATTACK AND DEFENSE 

NORMAL ATTACK AND 
DEFENCE 

Attack 

8 10 9 



83 




WHITE ARROWS INDICATE 
SPHERES of ACT I ON/ of 
SECONDARY DEFE/NCE 




84 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

most abnormal ones, granting that the personnel is nearly 
equal to that of the attacking team. 

Just one final word of objection based on some years of 
observation, to the waiting end. His post, in the very 
nature of the waiting defense, is farther from his tackle than 
in the case of the smashing end. He does not go to meet the 
play, and he even takes a circuitous route to his new position 
behind the opposing line. These moves are made without 
any idea of getting into immediate contact with the enemy. 
Should the play cut in between tackle and guard he will 
have played no part in the defense, whereas a smashing 
end, with his direct path to the runner, may be able to muss 
up a play that goes even directly into the center. He is a 
standing mark for any interference that may be thrown at 
him, and, since he has no initial momentum, may be carried 
out at times clear to the side line; worst of all, a play may be 
shot past so close to his own tackle that he cannot turn and 
dive into it in time to make any impression. I have seen 
some of these waiting ends standing like wooden images 
while the runner turned inside their posts, the attack not 
even wasting an interferer on them. Again, should his 
tackle by any chance show signs of weakening, and begin 
that kneeling defense that is so often the beginning of the 
end, the attack will be able to shoot plays right over the 
smothered tackle, the end helpless, in the meantime to get 
within tackling distance. The smashing end style has been 
adopted by many of the most capable coaches in the country, 
and has shown remarkable results under heavy fire. I 
believe that should schoolboy teams adopt this method 
their defensive play would improve at least fifty per 
cent. 

It should be clearly understood that the theory is radically 
different from the old Pennsylvania method of years ago, 
when the ends were played close to the tackles and sent in to 
carry the runner out of bounds if possible. The newest 



SIMPLE ATTACK AND DEFENSE 85 

method is a vast improvement on that system and a far more 
effective disorganizer of the attack. 

Turning now to the simple formations that are given to 
the attacking team in October, and leaving a considera- 
tion of the kicking and forward passing games and the 
defense against them to another chapter, I shall begin with 
the normal formation shown in Fig. 1, as effective to-day 
behind a balanced line as it ever was. Indeed, all the for- 
mations treated here are made behind the balanced line, 
although it should be noted that they are effective behind 
the shifts as well. 

One advantage of the old, or normal formation, with the 
quarter directly behind the center, and the three backs in a 
row parallel to the line of scrimmage and about four yards 
back, or even less, is its supreme concentration, and its 
consequent ability to take advantage of quick openings in 
the line. In all the formations shown in the accompany- 
ing diagrams it is well to keep in mind one general rule, a 
rule sometimes disastrously violated by even the greatest 
of the university teams — that in dashes into the line from 
tackle to tackle, the ball should always pass through the 
hands of the quarterback, while in runs outside of tackle, 
and more especially outside of end, the direct pass from the 
center to the back may be employed, although there is 
danger in this. Aside from possible fumbling or bad pass- 
ing, a disadvantage of the direct pass on any run save from 
a kick formation is that an end is obliged to come around 
behind the play to make it safe, and his value as an inter- 
ferer beyond the line of scrimmage is lost. This, of course, 
does not hold true when there is a back posted behind the 
man who is to receive the ball, as in the diamond formation, 
when the recovery of the ball on a fumble or a bad pass 
may with considerable safety be left to the backs themselves. 

Since pushing and pulling the runner have been abolished 
the normal formation allows an interferer to jump through 



86 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

a quick opening, with the ball carrier practically on his 
back, and since so little start is required there is a fair 
chance to shoot both men clear behind the opposing line. 
The beginning of the play being so close to the line, there is 
less danger of the play being spoiled by a tackle crossing 
over from behind, and the ends are free to cut across and 
concentrate on the first man in the secondary defense. Or 
the man with the ball may be shot through alone, the other 
backs affording lateral protection, while such line men as 
are not actually engaged in making the opening, may 
disengage from their opponents and shoot through to smother 
the secondary; an end, or both ends going on down the field 
to spill the last man in the defense should the runner succeed 
in getting clear. 

It is perhaps needless to explain that the success of simple 
plays like these, depending on a back of individual power 
and speed, and forwards skilled in individual interference, 
must go with the precision of clockwork, the runner arriving 
full speed at the opening the exact instant it is made. If 
the man with the ball is to be sent through first it is some- 
times a good plan to further spread the first line of defense 
by putting eight men on the attacking line. 

The whole underlying theory of the play is to begin the 
run itself and the interference as close to the firing line as 
possible, and to get the utmost possible execution out of 
the play after it has passed the line of scrimmage. In 
such plays, of course, the forward pass threat is at a mini- 
mum, save when a man is wasted to make the bluff; but with 
good, husky material in the line, and quick, heavy backs, 
there is a fair chance of success. A series of plays of this 
character will, even if unsuccessful, tend to pack up the 
defense, both primary and secondary, thus paving the way 
for a long gainer, which may catch the defense in an entirely 
too concentrated position. 

The use or lack of an interferer will depend entirely upon 



SIMPLE ATTACK AND DEFENSE 87 

the individual capabilities of the backs, and the ability of 
the forwards to make quick openings. If the forwards are 
able to make clean openings, if only for the fraction of a 
second (and they complain nowadays that the neutral 
zone between the two lines makes this extremely difficult, 
since it is hard to reach their men promptly) the man with 
the ball may be shot in at once, but if they are able to barely 
start the opening it may prove a good plan to throw in a big, 
powerful back ahead of the runner, in the hope of adding 
just the necessary amount of smash to split the defensive line 
apart. Nothing but constant trial will solve the problem. 

In the old days when pushing and pulling of the runner 
were permitted it was a sound rule of football always to 
send the man with the ball into the line first. This was 
what a certain famous coach referred to as "putting the 
power behind the ball." Nowadays it is often necessary 
to put the power in front of the ball, and this has become 
increasingly the case since many teams have developed 
individual interference to a high degree of excellence. 
Simple end and tackle runs may be made from the normal 
formation, as they have been in the past, depending for 
their success less upon complicated interference than upon 
smooth execution, even though the positions of the back 
with the ball and the interferers be fairly obvious. These 
runs may be made from the direct pass from center to the 
back, or with the ball passing through the quarter's hands, 
for it is a poor quarter indeed who is kept out of end run 
interference through the necessity of handling the ball. 

With the direct pass, however, the end swinging around 
from the side opposite to that on which the play is made 
must be used to cover the play, and so is lost to the inter- 
ference, whereas with the ball passing through the quarter, 
he is able to get into action with the tackle or guard as the 
case may be. With carefully devised plays, the simple, 
old formation shown in Fig. 1, should account for some 



88 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

good gains through the month of October and even later 
in the season. 

The diamond formation, Fig. 2, is a favorite with a great 
many coaches East and West, especially with those who 
favor a considerable use of the direct pass from center, to 
which it is excellently adapted. Like the normal forma- 
tion, the diamond is well suited to use behind a balanced 
line, having the regular frontal and bi-lateral threats. It 
is especially useful in end runs in that Nos. 8, 9 and 11 are 
already in position to take the direct pass from the center, 
and No. 10 can easily recover any fumble or bad pass with- 
out making use of a covering end, and when stationed five 
yards back of the line of scrimmage is excellently posted 
to make the forward pass, the threat of that play, or kick, 
with the other backs dropping easily and swiftly into the 
regular kick formation. 

The direct pass should never be made to No. 10, to my 
way of thinking, in any part of the field, and certainly not 
when the team is deep in its own territory. They still 
speak feelingly of this at New Haven, for an error of this 
kind once cost Yale the Princeton game. On the occasion 
in question the pass was made to Dunn, the last man in 
Yale's diamond, and as the backs started too soon, and the 
pass itself was poor, Dunn failed to connect with the ball, 
and the yellow egg lay loose in the mud for Sam White of 
Princeton to pick up and carry to a touchdown. Herein 
lay the chief fault in the formation, the uncovered last -man 
in the backfield. It was also a dangerous play in the part 
of the field chosen by the Blue for its use, for the ground 
and the ball were slippery, the Elis knew Sam White's 
specialty, and the team was much too near its own goal 
line to take such a raw chance. 

With the diamond formation in action, and carefully 
covered by an end, the ball may be shot to any one of the 
backs, who, making a lateral start, is not slowed up even the 



SIMPLE ATTACK AND DEFENSE 89 

DIAMOND FORMATION 

Line Defence 
i 

6 4 2 I — 1,3 57 

o o o u o o o 

7 5 3 JL 2 4 6, 



11 



9 lO 8 



Attack 



Fia. 3 

DIAGONAL TANDEM FORMATION 

Line Defence 

6 4 2 n a xx 

O O O u O O O 



• • • 

7 5 3 



1 2 4 6 



11 1Q 



t 



Attick 



90 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

smallest fraction of a second. He also finds his interference 
practically already formed. From this formation the for- 
ward pass and the kick may be made with the minimum of 
excess maneuvering, the backs have no difficulty in find- 
ing their positions as they do when the shifts are used, and 
the plays can be started at top speed. The scheme is an 
especially good one for a team that boasts the services of a 
" shadow" end runner with one big back to lend variety 
and power to the attack. 

Another simple formation that has many of the virtues 
of the diamond is the tandem, either straight or diagonal. 
Figure 3 gives an idea of the diagonal form. The tandem 
was especially valuable in the old days, for it was compact, 
it was not easy to tell which man of the three had the ball, 
and it had and still has a terrific amount of " drive," for 
although pushing is not allowed nowadays, the man with 
the ball may be rammed forward by a series of impacts by 
the other members of the tandem. The formation also 
contains the threat of false attack and its consequent 
" split-off" so successfully used by Harvard when Bill 
Reid was coaching the Crimson, and works nicely with 
the delayed pass. 

When the last man in the diagonal is five yards behind 
the line of scrimmage the formation contains the threat 
of any play possible under the rules, and has the still further 
advantage that the order of the men in it may be changed 
from time to time, being, sometimes led by the fullback, 
sometimes by a halfback. This echelon effect permits 
of the direct pass from the center when used behind a bal- 
anced line, and is very useful as a "jump back" shift be- 
hind a shifted line, a play successfully used in recent years 
by the Navy and lesser teams. With a guard and tackle 
brought over in front of the diagonal, so that both guards 
and tackles are "twinned" there is a double threat of a 
quick opening which is very effective. And this is true 



SIMPLE ATTACK AND DEFENSE 91 

Fi*.4 



*» w >' 



L FORMATION 

Line Defence 
64 a □ A £. X 

o o o o o o 

• • • ■ # • • 

7 5 a * fc * 6 



8 



10 9 

Attack 



Fi 3 .5 



SQUARE FORMATION 

Line Defence 
1 

o o o ^ o o o 



Y 5 3 * 2 4 6 

II 10 



9 » 

Attack 



92 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

whether the line shift be made by the "jump" or "slide" 
process, or on quick line-up, the last named, I believe, as 
good as any. 

The "L" formation, Fig. 4, is not common, but it has 
its uses none the less. It contains a straight tandem, which 
may easily swing into a kick or pass formation, and which 
contains the threat of both. From it a sharp drive into 
the line may be made, and it is very useful for end or tackle 
runs. The direct pass may be made to any of the backs 
when the center is a dependable handler of the ball, and the 
quarter can get into action without any difficulty. 

All the formations so far discussed are very handy when 
the team boasts a good end runner, but when the backs 
are all big and rugged and the line unusually powerful the 
situation changes to some extent. In such circumstances 
there is no better formation, I think, than the simple 
square, so effectively used by Harvard in recent years, 
and so widely adopted in the East in 1912. In that 
season Harvard made the most of it, Yale adopted it 
but robbed it of half of its efficiency for the greater part 
of the season by using the direct pass from center on every 
p^ay, while Princeton ignored it altogether, the Tigers being 
wedded to the Minnesota shift, three-rank style, which at 
the speed it was handled, suited their purpose admirably. 

In the square, Fig. 5, the backs must all be good indi- 
vidual interf erers, prepared to take a line man single handed 
if necessary. From this formation, which reeks with power, 
a heavy, grinding backfield will wear down anything but 
the sturdiest defense. It is well adapted to shifting com- 
binations, now one back, now another appearing at the 
"business" corner. It may be expanded and contracted 
without limit, may be formed immediately behind center, 
or may take post to the right or left of the middle of the line. 
The square requires less faith in deception of the opponent 
than most of the simple formations, and depends for its 



SIMPLE ATTACK AND DEFENSE 93 

success upon supremely good and powerful individual 

play. 

The formation is most satisfactory for sudden drives off 
the guard position, the runner veering out as he passes the 
line of scrimmage, or turning in sharply, according as one 
member or another of the secondary defense is put out of 
the play. As a rule one of the two " front" backs should 
be the heaviest man in the backfield. This formation, used 
as Harvard employed it, with the ball invariably passing 
through the hands of the quarterback, should provide high- 
class attack throughout the season — in the big game as well 
as in October. It lacks bewildering complication and yet 
is sufficiently elastic to serve for any sort of play, kick and 
forward pass included. 

In building up any formation the coach sticks to sim- 
plicity as far as possible, combined with utility, so that the 
formation becomes a habit with the backs and the men do 
not have to think consciously about finding their places. 
Whatever is done in the way of elaboration later in the 
season must be based on the sound fundamental formations 
that have been put to the test and not found wanting; 
otherwise a team will find itself facing its big game equipped 
with a great variety of plays that require an enormous 
amount of quick thinking, plays of which the backs cannot 
be sure, and which are likely to be torn apart by the defense 
in their incipiency. Better a few sound formations with 
simple plays therefrom, superbly executed by men conscious 
of their power, than a vast amount of " dress parade" that 
never gets anywhere. 

Toward the end of October, when the players are thor- 
oughly familiar with the groundwork of the attack, and can 
execute the plays doled out to them as if by second nature, 
it is time to give the entire eleven more than an inkling of 
what sort of grand tactics are to be used in the big games. 
Every man on the team should be taken into the con- 



94 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

fidence of the strategic coach to a large extent. This is 
good for the morale of the eleven, inspiring even greater 
confidence in the coach, in the players themselves, and in 
their knowledge of the coach's confidence in them. It is 
at this stage that advanced football begins to be the order 
of the practice, that the "joke" forward pass used in the 
lesser games is abandoned, and the finesse of the polished 
game brought home forcibly to the men. It is the period 
for which every man has waited and worked from the be- 
ginning, and the burgeoning of the larger scheme of cam- 
paign cannot fail to instil new life into what by this time 
may have become a tired team. 

There is only one thing to guard against, and that is the 
premature use of the team's "best stuff." The time may 
come in a game with one of the big elevens just prior to 
the all-important match of the year, when golden oppor- 
tunity stares the quarterback in the face, when he knows 
that by using one of the plays reserved for the greatest 
rival he can defeat a lesser, but still a "big" team. The 
temptation is more than most field generals can stand, and 
for that reason it may be well to withhold from him the 
culmination of the "scoring" play, the complete plan, lest 
he be tempted to use it and thus expose it to the watchful 
eyes of the scouts from the rival team which it is most 
desired to conquer. The situation does not often arise, 
but when it does it would be well for the head coach to be 
prepared for it in the manner indicated. In a word, no 
team should be an absolutely finished product, an absolutely 
polished organization, until the day of its greatest game. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE TRAINEE — HIS VALUE TO TEAM AND COACHES 

Football is a game that requires of the player not 
merely good, but exceptional condition. The man who has 
done a deal of fairly severe physical work daily, whose 
muscles are hard, and whose wind appears to be sound, is 
far from being in fit shape to stand the ordeal of a big 
game as it is played to-day. Thereby hangs the story of 
the advent of Harry Tuthill, trainer, at West Point. Be- 
cause of the strict discipline, the amount of drill and the 
abstemious life lived by the West Point cadets the young men 
in gray were expected to tackle a stiff schedule annually, to 
go through game after game, not necessarily without injury, 
but at least without suffering from exhaustion on the field. 
For years the eleven struggled along without the services of 
a professional trainer, even though those who were in charge 
of the coaching realized that the cadets were as much in 
need of special attention, if for different reasons, as the 
collegians. Year after year the eleven met such teams as 
Harvard, Yale and Princeton, and stood up famously in 
the first half, only to yield in the second. 

Anyone who had been in the cadet dressing room between 
the halves in the course of this trainerless period was able 
to realize on the spot that the services of an experienced 
man were needed, since the team was generally utterly 
exhausted after a hard half against older, stronger and 
better conditioned men. At length the change came. One 
head coach had been watching for some time the work of 

95 



96 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

Harry Tuthill as trainer of the Detroit baseball team of 
the American League. Tuthill was making a record in 
reducing sprains in a hurry and this alone would have made 
him extremely valuable to any football team. But the 
baseball trainer had other qualities, and the West Point 
head coach at last made arrangements to engage him for 
the football season. 

He arrived at a time when there was a deal of heavy drill 
work and the daily dress parade winding up with the review 
in which the cadet corps did a quarter of a mile or so in 
full uniform and in double time. After the review, so the 
story goes, the superintendent sent for Tuthill and asked 
the baseball man just why he was needed at an institution 
whose young men were already in such superb physical 
condition. 

"Well, I dunno," replied Tuthill, twirling his hat on his 
thumb, "but if you'll ask these young fellows to run around 
the block just once more and then ask them to whistle I 
think you'll find out." 

Thereafter the veteran baseball trainer became a fixture, 
and he turned out better conditioned elevens than had 
been seen at West Point in years, whether in victory or 
defeat. What Tuthill did for army teams had been done for 
years at other institutions : by Jack McMasters at Princeton, 
and more recently by Keene Fitzpatrick, who had a splendid 
record at Michigan; by Pooch Donovan at Harvard; by 
Mike Murphy at Yale, and subsequently at Pennsylvania; 
by Johnny Mack at Yale, and by Jack Moakley at Cornell. 
It is true that all these men, save Tuthill, were primarily 
track and field coaches and trainers, but they soon applied 
their store of wisdom successfully to football, with the result 
that to-day, on the eve of a big game, no prognostication 
of the outcome that does not include a consideration of 
condition is worth the paper on which it is printed. 

To those who do not delve very deeply into football, 



THE TRAINER 97 

however, the trainer has always seemed to be of no very- 
great importance. They see him on the field at many a 
halt in the course of the big game, swabbing off his charges 
with a huge sponge, bandaging broken heads, patching up 
hands, arms and ankles, especially ankles. But of all the 
hard work of the early season there is little evidence save 
to the tutored eye. 

Yet the trainer is to-day one of the most important cogs 
in the football machine. The outsider would be surprised 
to learn the extent to which he is consulted on the most 
important details of the game. It has been said of Mike 
Murphy, for instance, that he knew as much about the 
game as the best of the coaches. He had ideas of his own, 
too, and they were generally good ones. While at Yale 
he was a better prophet of the result of the Harvard-Yale 
game than any one else at New Haven, and picked the score 
with frequency and surprising approach to absolute accuracy. 
Murphy's reputation, so far as the general public was con- 
cerned, rested largely on his work with the track and field 
teams, but men who followed football closely esteemed him 
quite as much for his efforts in the football season. Keene 
Fitzpatrick made a similar football reputation at Michigan, 
and Pooch Donovan- has long been thoroughly appreciated 
at Harvard. The men mentioned stand at the top of the 
heap, but the country is full of good men who are gaining 
in experience every day and will reach the top when the 
Veterans settle back to enjoy their laurels. 

Now aside from his regular duties in conditioning the 
team, in apportioning the time each man or set of men ought 
to be allowed to work in practice, and in bandaging, de- 
vising defensive armor and the like, the trainer is of the ut- 
most value to the coach in that he is in touch with the 
team after it has passed from under the eye of the coach. 
Both coach and trainer are presumably experts in judging 

men and their moods, but the trainer sees his charges at 
7 



98 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

their worst as well as their best. They are turned over 
to him after a hard day's practice, frequently tired and 
worn, and perhaps discouraged to the last degree. Once 
back in the gymnasium they are apt to relax mentally as 
well as physically, sometimes almost to the point of break- 
down. It is in such circumstances that the " yellow streak " 
is often apt to show, that flinch that is often so well con- 
cealed on the field up to the day of the big game. Under 
the same conditions pluck,too, comes to the surface, and the 
trainer has a chance to find out why a certain candidate 
had an off day. It may have been that the young fellow 
concealed his hurt from the coach fearing that it would 
spoil his chance of making the eleven. He cannot, however, 
conceal it from the trainer, who promptly orders him on the 
hospital list and tells the coach what the trouble has been. 
A report also goes in concerning the over-tender apparent 
star who whines about his bruises and demands all the 
trainer's time while men more sorely in need of attention 
never raise a whimper. 

Again, if something is going wrong with the training table 
it is the trainer who first discovers the trouble and has the 
matter rectified. All that close watching off the field 
that the coach is too busy to undertake falls upon the 
shoulders of the trainer, and they are generally capable 
shoulders, whether broad or not. 

The inspection and care of the outfits of the players is 
another duty performed by the trainer, who sees that the 
material is up to the mark, that pads are properly placed, 
that shoes are correctly cleated, that protectors of all sorts 
are doing the work for which they are worn. It was not 
so many years ago that one of the leading Eastern trainers 
discovered the reason for the battered condition of the squad 
after the daily practice after the coaches had been thor- 
oughly baffled. He found that the leather helmets were 
entirely too hard, that shoulder pads were almost like iron, 



THE TRAINER 99 

and that elbow protectors were also causing their share of 
bruises. He at once ordered a change in the material, 
discouraged the use of excessive protective armor, and soon 
brought his squad into shape again. As a result trainers 
everywhere began to see the light. Little by little they 
stripped their men of helmets and other protectors that were 
hard at least as boards, and found that their daily casualty 
list rapidly decreased. In consequence, there is really less 
"hard" armor worn to-day than has been the case in many 
years. 

By the time the big game rolls around, indeed, most of 
the men have been brought into such sound physical con- 
dition that they voluntarily remove many of their pads and 
dispense with headgear as much as possible, especially in 
the line. Dispensing with heavy padding adds to speed, 
and now that the grinding mass plays are no longer in evi- 
dence I have known men to go through a big game with 
almost no padding at all. The noseguard, once so familiar 
on the field, and still the mainstay of the comic artist, is 
all but a thing of the past. 

No man can play football at top notch unless his cloth- 
ing is suitable and comfortable, and not one player in twenty- 
five knows when he is properly outfitted. Suits cannot be 
passed on from man to man nor the same pad fitted to several 
different candidates. Now this matter of comfort may be 
measured from the ground up. Shoes that are worn down 
too far on one side or with soles so thin that the cleats can 
be felt should never be worn by any player, and it is one 
of the duties of a capable trainer to see that the squad is 
comfortably shod and to complain when necessary to the 
manager, and even to fight the head coach when the sup- 
plies of this sort are not up to the mark. There is the 
question of wet weather also to be dealt with. Dry suits — 
from the skin out — must be in readiness between the 
halves, and long cleats at hand before the game, when the 



100 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

field is heavy. Games have been won and lost through de- 
tails of this kind. The trainer is not always to blame, 
either, for he may reach a strange field and find that no 
preparations have been made for his team's comfort, and 
that the dressing quarters are all but impossible. 

Pennsylvania and Cornell once played a game at Franklin 
Field in which ice and snow and sleet figured largely. At 
the end of the first half the Ithacans were in the lead by a 
single score. When they retired to the dressing room they 
found that no provision for heating it had been made, and 
they had but one outfit of football clothing with them. 
Their togs literally froze on their bodies, and when they 
came out for the second half they were all but encased in 
ice. The Quakers, on the other hand, had made a complete 
change. The team had been warmed, rubbed and fitted 
throughout with fresh, dry clothing. In this second half 
Pennsylvania scored twice and won the game. It would 
be difficult to convince a Cornellian that his team could 
not have won the game had it been able to get warm be- 
tween the halves and to don dry clothing. While it would 
be too much to expect a Pennsylvania man to admit that 
it made the difference between victory and defeat, he is 
usually ready enough to grant that the conditions were un- 
equal to a serious extent. The Cornell eleven should have 
had the foresight to take along fresh clothing, especially 
as years of experience had taught them what sort of weather 
to expect on Franklin Field on a Thanksgiving Day, and 
there should have been some provision for heating the room 
in which the team rested between the halves. 

Especially in the matter of cleats will the wise trainer 
look out for his team, for if the eleven strikes a muddy field 
and cannot stand up, all the generalship in the world and 
the finest of individual play, will not serve to win the game. 
On a dry field the cleats should be short but numerous, so 
that there will be no excess pressure on any one part of the 



THE TRAINER 101 

foot, while on a muddy gridiron three long cleats are gen- 
erally sufficient. 

In 1911 at West Point on the day of the Army-Yale game 
the field was little better than a lake. Yale should have 
been prepared with cleats of extra length, the more so as 
the Blue's entire attack consisted of the New Haven ver- 
sion of the Minnesota shift, while there should have been 
some means of drying off the hands of the backs from time 
to time. The preparations had not been made, however, 
and it was a wonder that the Yale men were not more 
severely beaten, as the cadets were equipped with regular 
mud cleats, and were supplied with rosin for the hands 
and forearms. A pocket had even been sewed into the 
jersey of Capt. Hyatt, the Army quarterback, and from 
this he was able to supply his men with rosin from time to 
time. I am convinced that had the game been played on 
a dry field the result would have been about the same, but 
as it was the Yale players were in a more uncomfortable 
situation than they should have been. 

It sometimes happens, of course, that the needed supplies 
are not forthcoming from a management that may have 
had a lecture on extravagance read to it, but economy of 
this kind is of the poorest, and the trainer will have to make 
a constant fight for what he knows to be necessities. 

Nothing but long experience will equip the trainer with 
a knowledge of protective bandaging, but the old-timer will 
see to it that his eleven takes the field well fortified at 
least as far as the important joints are concerned. A 
sprained ankle is not the terror that it used to be, and can 
now be corrected in a few days, when years ago it was apt 
to put a player out of the game for the season, and often 
just at a time when the coaches felt the need of teaching 
him a great deal of football in a short time. But it has 
been found to be wise to see to it that the chances of sus- 
taining a sprain are reduced to a minimum before the game 



102 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

is begun, and for this reason a bandage is generally used 
next to the skin, with another outside the stocking. There 
are various other appliances invented by trainers, and 
these may be built into the shoe itself. The use of lini- 
ments and massage will go far toward hastening the cure 
of a sprain, but the wise trainer is he who makes reasonably 
certain that he will have none to cure. I have always 
believed that protective bandaging was more effective than 
any amount of padding, and I think most trainers will 
support me in that belief. 

Now when the squad appears for work in the fall the 
trainer will find that he has on hand men of all sizes and 
shapes and in all sorts of physical condition, and the problem 
is to bring this widely differing material to a uniform con- 
dition at a stated time. Herein will lie most of his difficul- 
ties with the coaches. In the old days there were two 
widely differing theories, one was to save the men as much 
as possible, giving them short scrimmages at as fast a pace as 
possible. This made the teaching slow, however, and also 
resulted in many injuries, for the men were so fresh and 
eager to get into the fray that the bumping was harder 
than their "soft" condition could stand. The other theory 
was to work the men as hard as possible, giving them long 
scrimmages. This was a great favorite with most coaches, 
for they found that they had more time in which to teach. 
It developed, however, that the men became so utterly ex- 
hausted they eventually were filled with disgust for the 
game and could not keep their minds on the coaching. It 
is seldom, nowadays, that the players are overworked, for 
the faculty restrictions have become so severe that the 
coaches are hard put to it in many institutions to get the 
men out for even an hour at a time, the two government 
academies being the greatest sufferers in this respect. 
Moreover, the scrimmage of to-day is not as wearing physi- 
cally as the old-time mass plays, and the work for many 



THE TRAINER 103 

weeks is highly individual. It is not that team play is not 
begun as early as in the past, but that the formations are 
different, and the individual has a great deal more to learn 
if the plays are to go smoothly. 

Most trainers, after consultation with the coach, insist 
on keeping the work very light for the first ten days, and 
giving the same amount to all the men, big or little, fat or 
lean. This seems to work well while the men are "soft," 
and it is not until later that the trainer begins to specialize 
in individuals, demanding of the coaches that they shorten 
the rest period for one man and lengthen it for another. 

In these days of shift plays, both simple and complicated, 
of forward passes, and of frequent kicking, speed and agility 
are factors of the greatest moment. With the shifts in 
use, the players not only have to start quickly, but stop as 
quickly when they reach their shifted positions, and make 
a second start as swiftly as the first. This adds to the im- 
portance of practicing starts, and means, too, that the great- 
est care must be taken against overtraining, for while an 
under trained team is apt to achieve pace and quick start- 
ing as the game progresses, an overtrained eleven becomes 
slower and slower. Thus it is that the trainer would prefer 
to see his men go into the big game lacking a deal of work, 
than enter so thoroughly overworked that they are mentally 
and physically "dead." 

There are temperaments in a football team as varied as 
any in any other branch of endeavor. The trainer must 
therefore learn the mental attitude toward the game of all 
his men, so far as is humanly possible. There is the phleg- 
matic player, who is a tremendous worker, but too often 
without "fire." There is the high-strung man, who fidgets 
and wastes his mental and physical reserve when not in 
actual action. The former temperament needs keying up, 
the latter letting down. Trainer and coach may well work 
together in handling these men. The phlegmatic chap is 



104 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

more apt to respond to a little humor now and then than to 
gruelling coaching. His mental interest has to be geared 
up. The nervous man, on the contrary, needs to have his 
mind swept clear of all thought of football when not in 
action or studying signals or some other important matter 
in connection with the game. 

There was a famous line man of recent years who was 
trying for centre. He already had a reputation in that posi- 
tion as a hard worker and a man who was to be found all 
over the field. But he took the work of preparation sol- 
emnly. There seemed to be no fun in it for him. He was 
being prepared to meet an equally famous opponent whom 
for convenience we shall call "Bill." One day the coach 
showed a little trick of centre play likely not only to be 
of great value to the team but of great annoyance to "Bill." 
The veteran listened carefully for several minutes, then a 
slow smile, the first of the season, lighted up his face. 
"Gee," said he, "won't Bill be sore!" 

The nervous man must have his interest in other things 
aroused, and must realize that the coach who teaches him 
and the man who trains him, earnest as they appear to be, 
can find room in their lives, even at the height of the 
season, for things other than football. Of such a man 
the trainer should make a personal friend. The two 
should be able to get together from time to time to talk 
over something other than football, and the good trainer 
has been out in the world long enough to keep a youngster 
interested even when away from the gridiron topic. 

There are of course extreme cases of gridiron sluggish- 
ness—men who can be aroused only by harsh measures 
of an extremely personal kind. Such men are apt to be 
over endowed with good nature, or to be without ambition. 
It frequently happens that nothing but a form of ostracism 
will serve to stir them up. In such an extreme case the 
trainer continues the harsh treatment of the coaches by 



THE TRAINER 105 

paying practically no attention to the delinquent for many 
days at a time, by laughing at him even when he is doing 
fairly good work, by accusing him of "quitting." Humil- 
iation of that kind has in rare cases made a star out of a 
man who had always had a lot of football in him, but who 
would not otherwise have shown it, owing to some queer 
kink in his disposition. 

Not infrequently there comes a time in the course of the 
team's development when the entire squad is in what is 
known as a " slump." This is usually at about mid-season, 
and just after the first really hard game against a high-class 
opponent. If the team has played poorly in the game the 
coaches will be hungry to get at the men and anxious to lay 
out the hardest kind of daily work. It is a natural temp- 
tation, for the coaches themselves probably will be under 
fire by the undergraduate body and the alumni. On the 
other hand, if the team has acquitted itself well in its first 
serious test, the coaches are anxious to get the team out 
and by hard work and much coaching show the players 
that despite their apparently good work underfire they have 
still volumes to learn concerning football. When the 
coaches have been allowed to do this the team has gone 
from bad to worse. 

The "slump" is really apt to be due to the fact that the 
men are "overfootballed" just as a man may be "over- 
golfed." It is at this point that the trainer should fight for 
a complete rest for his men. They should have a chance 
to forget the game utterly for the moment, so that when 
they come back for the hard work it will be a thoroughly 
aroused body of men, eager for work, eager for the coaching 
that will show them wherein they failed, or wherein they 
may improve on their already good play. 

The daily scrimmage, too, is one of the trainer's troubles, 
for he must watch carefully for the slightest sign of injury 
and insist upon the prompt removal of the injured man 



106 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

even though the latter is still anxious to continue. Scrim- 
mages should be short, as a rule, especially where there is 
much work on rudiments, and the parceling out of the 
time should be one of the trainer's duties in consultation 
with the head coach. A man who has been doing a deal 
of work in the rudiments should not stay as long in the 
scrimmage as the player who has had no tackling of the bag, 
catching kicks and signal work to do. It is customary, 
too, to change the backs more frequently than the forwards, 
for their work is extremely hard these days, and it must be 
remembered that scrimmage practice is of value only when 
it goes at top speed. 

As the day of the big game approaches the team will 
become more and more on edge mentally as well as phys- 
ically, and the trainer must guard carefully against team as 
well as individual nervousness. When the last practice 
is over the trainer must see to it that the coaches do not 
talk the men to death. There is always a temptation to add 
something to the coaching. There have been cases, for 
instance, in which the coaches have kept the quarterback 
and sometimes other players up too late on the eve of the 
game, talking over generalship, and aroused them too early 
on the day of the match for the same purpose. Here the 
influence of the trainer is again of the greatest importance. 
The head coach is not infrequently himself a victim of ex- 
treme nervousness, and this will communicate itself to the 
team if he is not kept away. Nothing so quickly unsettles 
a lot of youngters as the feeling that the man who has 
taught them the game is worried over its outcome. One 
of the assistant coaches, the most phlegmatic of the lot, 
should be the man to stay with the eleven on the eve of the 
game. 

A trainer will also have his hands full watching room- 
mates of the players, who should be told to have nothing 
to say about football the last week before the big game, 



THE TRAINER 107 

and for at least two nights before the battle the team and 
the substitutes should be kept away from contact with the 
over-excited undergraduates. 

There is great diversity of opinion as to what should be 
said to the eleven, and by whom, just before it takes the 
field, and just how much should be attempted between 
the halves. In this respect the psychology of the eleven 
itself as an entity must be carefully studied. There are 
some teams that do not take kindly to a harangue by coach, 
trainer, or anybody else, while others find it a real stimulant. 
More speeches were made in the old days, and they were 
more impassioned than they are now. Personally I can 
see no reason why the head coach should not talk to the 
team just as it gathers to go out of the dressing room, but 
it should be a cool, confident and quiet talk, largely devoid 
of the old allusions to college loyalty, etc. This leads natu- 
rally to a consideration of whether the trainer should say 
anything at all. He is apt to be extremely popular with 
the team, and the men usually like to feel that he is "with 
them" when they are out upon the field. But in the 
course of dressing for action the good trainer generally 
finds time for a little " jolly" to each man while bandages, 
etc., are being arranged. I know that there have been 
occasions upon which impassioned speeches have been 
made, and know too, that they have had some effect, but 
with rare exceptions I believe they are worthless when they 
are not actually harmful. 

Between the halves the situation is not greatly changed, 
I think. There have been occasions, even in recent years, 
when the team has been aroused to a fine frenzy in the 
intermission. Everybody knows, I think, the story of how 
Mike Murphy appealed to a Pennsylvania eleven between 
the halves to such purpose that it won the game after hav- 
ing been eleven points behind. That address would have 
done credit to the greatest ranter who ever stepped upon 



108 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

the stage, and there is no doubt of its effectiveness. There 
is also the incident of the "old grad" who, with his two 
little boys on his shoulders, shoved his way into the dress- 
ing room between the halves, weeping, and exhorted the 
team to win for the sake of his two small sons who were 
to go to that same college and become football players 
when they grew up. These, however, are extremes, and 
when there is anything at all to be said between the halves, 
it is generally concerning the technique of the play, both 
as a team and as individuals. And I am convinced that 
there should be very little even of this. The good trainer 
will have little enough to do between the halves. 

It remains for him, in the event of defeat, to sympathize 
with the team after the game, for most of the coaches will 
not, and encourage them for another season. In the event 
of victory there will be plenty of handshakers at the dress- 
ing-room door. 

To sum up, then, the good trainer, albeit a professional, 
is far from the sinister person he has been held to be by the 
outsider. I have known instances in which his influence 
has been for the greatest good even outside of football. It 
should be, and generally is, an honorable profession, when 
the individual in question is not a "fly-by-night" of the 
type so prevalent many years ago, when the bulk of his 
work was with prize fighters and other professionals. As 
long as the universities indulge in a professional trainer, he 
should have every opportunity to feel that he is a valuable 
and respected cog in the athletic machinery. 



CHAPTER VIII 

ADVANCED FOOTBALL — INDIVIDUAL ATTACK AND DEFENSE 

With the simple theories of attack and defense well 
understood, and the pristine awkwardness of the new 
material overcome, the coaches are ready to get in their best 
work teaching the fine points of individual offense and 
defense. The burden of this sort of instruction is happily 
removed from the shoulders of the head coach of a great 
university eleven, albeit he at all times keeps an eye on the 
coaches under him, making suggestions and giving advice 
out of the fulness of his experience, while in the case of a 
small college or a school the individual as well as the broader 
team instruction falls to the lot of one man. It is in this 
matter of individual technique, indeed, that the larger and 
older institutions are so thoroughly equipped and have so 
great an advantage over their lesser and younger rivals. 

It is right in the scrimmage line that individual technique 
bears perhaps the greatest fruit, and there are hundreds of 
able tutors of the backfield in the country, East and West, 
to one capable line coach. I believe I am safe in saying 
that in the whole United States there are fewer than a dozen 
really fine line coaches. 

Granted that at any institution at any time there has 
been an unusually capable line coach, it too often happens 
that the technique taught by him is lost in a few years 
through the promotion to positions as line coaches of for- 
wards who have been the stars of a season or two, rather 
than of men who have had to learn in the sweat of their 
brows all they know about line play and so the better 

109 



110 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

equipped for service as instructors. Genius is a poor 
schoolmaster, in football as in many other things. It is 
natural, therefore, that the older institutions should know 
more about the technique of line play, since, in the slang of 
the field, if they "have lost the dope," they may turn to 
several old-timers for its recovery. And the greatest of 
them have to revive this line technique from time to time. 

One of the greatest guards who ever stood upon a grid- 
iron was called back one year to coach. While he was 
illustrating to one of his pupils the proper position to take 
on defense he was approached by the master line coach of 
them all. "What are you going to do, Jim," the latter 
asked, "if your man comes past on your right side?" "Oh," 
replied the active tutor, "I just stick out my right arm, like 
this." "Ah yes," retorted the Old Master, "but did you 
ever stop to think that that is the only right arm in the 
world?" The star was passing on one of his own pet 
devices, which no one not endowed with the same physical 
equipment could hope to master, and not the technique 
which he himself had learned and which is in the main fitted 
to all sorts and conditions of line material. It is in this 
transition process that the old, fundamental, sound tech- 
nique is frequently lost. 

It is impossible to coach a line on paper, and it will not 
be attempted here, but certain established rules of individual 
play, ripe with age, for both line and backs, may be set forth. 
It is safe to advise the line man on defense, "Use your 
hands all the time," and on both attack and defense, 
"Carry your man upstream." It is safe, too, to advise the 
back on attack, "Keep your feet, never run back, and 
when certain to be tackled be sure you go straight into your 
tackier." On these are founded all the law and the proph- 
ets. It may require an entire season to drive these 
principles home to the players, but if the men are ever to 
learn football they must master these simple fundamentals. 



ADVANCED INDIVIDUAL PLAY 111 

To take up the work of the backs first, which, so far as 
individual technique is concerned begins with the snapping 
of the ball and ends with the whistle announcing that the 
ball is down. There is, first, the preliminary position, which 
should closely resemble the crouch of the sprinter and which 
should be exactly the same every time, regardless of the di- 
rec tion or the ultimate obj ective of the play. The back must 
remember that he must get instantly into action in any one 
of five directions straight ahead, right or left, and right or 
left oblique. His eyes should be on the ball from the instant 
he takes his position until the ball is snapped or until he gets 
the starting signal, if one is used. Not so much as the 
flicker of an eyelash or the tautening of a muscle must be 
allowed to give away the direction of the play, and above all 
the back must guard against giving away by any sudden 
tenseness the approach of the instant when the ball is to be 
snapped. 

If he is to go into the line at any point from tackle to tackle, 
carrying the leather, he need not worry about the ball, for 
it will be tucked into the pit of his stomach by the quarter- 
back, who is there for that purpose, and all he need do is 
get up speed and fold both hands over the ball wheh he gets 
it. If he is going through guard position or through center 
it is a safe plan to keep both hands on the ball until he is 
free of the line of scrimmage, but if he is making a wide 
tackle or end run he should shift the ball to that side of the 
body that is away from the line, and get ready to use the 
" straight arm" on the first tackier that drives at him. It 
is no uncommon experience even at a big game to find the 
back carrying the ball on the wrong side. This is inex- 
cusable. It is impossible to overestimate the value of a 
vise-like grip on the yellow egg, and this grip is not only easy 
but comfortable once it is learned. The important grips, 
when the ball is carried at one side are the two ends. One 
end should be cared for by the palm of the hand and the 



112 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

fingers, the other end by the arm-pit or the arm just above 
the elbow and the soft part of the side of the body. The 
arm will protect one side of the ball, the soft part of the body 
below the ribs, the other. And the ball should be kept low, 
for once it is brought up against the hard part of the 
body it is often easy to knock it out of the runner's hands. 

When receiving the direct pass from the center the runner 
will either take the ball before starting, or in mid-career, the 
latter apt to be dangerous. When using these direct passes 
the runner must be sure above all things of getting the ball, 
for the natural tendency is to take chances or to overrun 
the spot at which the leather is to be taken on the fly. 

Granting that the start is clean and the ball well in hand, 
the runner -must bear in mind the necessity of keeping low 
- — in the case of a dash outside of tackle or end, sticking to his 
interference as long as possible and cutting loose when it is 
of no more service. Incidentally, should an interferer prove 
reluctant to leave his feet to smother an approaching tackier, 
the runner should drive his man into the enemy, shoving him 
sharply with his free hand. In the course of a wide dash 
the runner may well lengthen his stride and pick up his feet 
sharply so that he is "all knees in front and all heels behind. " 
If at the same time he uses the straight arm and keeps his 
body low he will be about as pleasant to tackle as a forty 
horse-power hatrack. 

Once fairly free and into a broken secondary defense the 
back may find it advantageous to change his direction and 
to change his pace. This last is as effective as it is rare, and is 
done by alternately shortening and lengthening the stride, 
the back taking care, however, that he is always at top speed 
when he passes or meets a tackier. The quick change of 
direction, notably in turning into openings, is largely born 
in a man, but the beginner should remember that the best 
plan is to make the turn as nearly at right angles with his 
original course as possible. 



ADVANCED INDIVIDUAL PLAY 113 

Both the change of pace and the turn are effective against 
a defensive player who is under good headway, but hardly 
as satisfactory against a tackier who has reached a point of 
vantage from which he can turn right or left sharply without 
any danger of overrunning the man with the ball. Once 
past the line of scrimmage the runner is master of his own 
movements and the best judge of ultimate direction, so that 
he may then turn in or out as prospects seem to warrant, 
shifting the ball from one arm to the other according to his 
needs. 

The natural fearlessness of a good back ought to increase 
when he finds himself clear of the press and dealing with 
individuals of the defense in the open. The advantage 
is all his. If the tackier is coming up at full speed he is 
easy to avoid, and if he is preparing for his lunge after a 
sudden slow-down, he cannot go into the runner as hard, 
unless he is very big and powerful, as the runner can go 
into him. Now the big, heavy back, who is not particularly 
evasive in a broken field, and therefore practically compelled 
to meet his tackier, can often make the best use of his 
natural gifts by keeping his power and drive well under 
him, as Wendell, of Harvard, used to do, by taking short 
steps, and making certain of meeting the defensive player 
face to face, driving his shoulders into the tackier as they 
come together. In this way he will break many a hold, 
and the short steps will enable him to keep his feet handily 
while shaking free. Such a man will often stand up for 
five yards or more after two men strike him. 

I have in mind at the moment the methods of three great 
backs, the Harvard captain of 1912, Coy, of Yale, and Tib- 
bot, of Princeton. Tibbot I have always considered one 
of the greatest end and tackle runners the game has ever 
seen. This Tiger star had a neat trick of practically "spill- 
ing" off the back of his own tackle and veering sharply 

out and into the open, where his change of pace, speed, use 
8 



114 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

of the straight arm, and faculty of drawing away the hips 
while his feet continued in their original course, made him 
an extremely difficult man to reach. Wendell was a master 
of the art of "bulling" through a tackier with his powerful 
shoulders, his short, almost mincing, steps hoarding up the 
final drive for the exact instant when the demand came 
for the ultimate ounce of power. Coy, on the other hand, 
had a high knee action, and although going into his man, 
ran higher, by far, than Wendell, and was "all corners' ' 
when he struck. The methods must be adapted to the 
natural gifts of the back, and so far as is possible, the back 
should be encouraged in the development of his own natural 
system, to be capped with such fine points as may be gained 
from experienced coaching. The one thing to avoid is an 
attempt to make all the backs follow a single system, to 
which one or more will be unsuited by nature. 

When going into the line the back should have his feet 
well enough under him so that, should his opening be a 
clean one, he can shoot through to the secondary defense 
without stumbling forward and perhaps falling through 
sheer excess momentum, and when he finds unexpected 
opposition, such as a sudden choking up of the opening, 
it is all the more necessary that his steps be short and his 
legs moving like piston rods. In every compact mass that 
has for its core the man with the ball there will be a per- 
ceptible weakening one way or another, and for this the 
runner should feel, until such time as it becomes second 
nature to him. The instant he "senses" a giving way 
he should summon all his power in that direction, for if he 
is so thoroughly packed in that he cannot easily be tackled 
there remains a fair chance for him to break clear of the 
press, or at least to keep his feet for many an extra yard, 
working always in the direction of least resistance. This 
feeling of lessening resistance in one direction or another 
is difficult indeed to define. In some men it is practically 



ADVANCED INDIVIDUAL PLAY 115 

instinctive, while others are obliged to acquire it through 
constant practice until it becomes a football habit. 

Now in shooting through an opening only constant 
practice will enable a man to tell the exact instant when it 
is wise to cut in, and even after this is acquired, he will 
have to learn to take in in the single flash of an eye not 
only the opening itself, but the situation of the defensive 
players behind this opening so that before he is through he 
has mentally mapped his future movements. The good 
back is always thinking a shade in advance of the thing he 
is doing, if such flashes can really be called thinking. 

Once free of the last man in the defense the back must 
guard against the natural tendency to overstride, for this 
would be fatal to the success of his run. Above all, as he 
values his reputation, he should avoid the error of Lot's 
wife, for looking back slows him up, and too often is the 
beginning of a mental panic that continues until he is 
ignominiously tackled. 

Under modern conditions interference is one of the great 
features of the play of a back, for as the game is played 
to-day he is often called upon to care single-handed for one 
of the strongest players on the defense, even in the first 
line of the enemy. In one of the important games of 1912 
a certain great tackle lost his reputation not through the 
efforts of his immediate opponent, to whom was accorded 
all the credit in the public prints, but because one of the 
offensive backs constantly put him out of the play. One 
of the touchdowns made by Harvard in that season against 
Yale was directly due to the wonderful individual inter- 
ference of Hardwick who accounted for two men in the Yale 
defense at the critical moment. 

There is no moment from the time the run starts until 
the ball is declared down that the back should not employ 
in interfering, even if many yards away from the play. He 
should put one or more members of the defense to the sod 



116 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

every time, as if the success of the run depended upon him 
and upon him alone. He should prevent tackling from in 
front, behind, and on both sides. There have been instances 
in which a defensive player has been able to make two tries 
at the runner, but against a team that understands indi- 
vidual interference as it is understood in some quarters to- 
day, such a thing should be beyond the bounds of possibility. 

The up-to-date back, when interfering, makes absolutely 
certain of his man, even at the cost of leaving his feet and 
going out of the play with him. If he can put him out, 
keep his feet, and continue the run, so much the better, 
but the defensive player must be put out of it beyond the 
suspicion of a doubt. There are many methods of putting 
a would-be tackier out of the play, but that one is generally 
best that employs as much of the body at one time as possi- 
ble. Some men acquire a great deal of skill in blocking 
with the shoulder and keeping the feet at the same time, 
but this, as pointed out above, is apt to be dangerous, 
whereas, if the tackier is met by the entire body of the 
interferer he will find it difficult in the extreme to keep on 
his own feet. When the interferer does rely upon his 
shoulder blocking alone he should as a rule be facing in 
the direction taken by the runner, as otherwise the tackier 
may be able to work his way around him. With the body 
thrown into the tackier on the horizontal, however, with 
one leg well up, or with both feet in air and the legs ex- 
tended full length, there is little chance for the defensive 
player. 

The side of the body and the hip should be the imme- 
diate points of contact, but there are times when a clever 
tackier will evade them and the legs alone will have to be 
relied upon to bring him down. Further, when the inter- 
ferer meets more than one tackier in a bunch he can some- 
times spill two men by meeting one with the hip or body, 
and turning over the other with his extended legs. It will 



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ADVANCED INDIVIDUAL PLAY 117 

be hard work disciplining the hands and elbows, which, of 
course, are barred from use on the offense by rule, but the 
more the interferer practises the use of the body and legs 
the less he will come to depend instinctively on the illegal 
use of the arms and hands. 

Despite the growing tendency to make a deal of use of 
the direct pass from the center nowadays, one of the all- 
important functions of the quarterback is still the han- 
dling of the ball. If he takes the leather low from the center 
the chances of fumbling will be greatly decreased, and the 
smooth passage of the ball from the center to the quarter 
and thence to the back, will be facilitated. With the 
leather coming back high there is at least an even chance 
that it will be handled high in the backfield, thus leading 
to spasms of fumbling. In passing for a buck into the line 
the quarter should place the ball in the pit of the runner's 
stomach; in the case of an end run he may let it go out of 
his hands before it reaches the back, but I believe that the 
days of the old " floating' ' pass, so popular years ago, will 
never recur. It is the safest policy, as constant experiment 
has demonstrated, to pass the ball to the runner, and not 
to some spot where he is expected to be, as is the case in 
the direct pass from center. With fast passing, very little 
allowance will have to be made for the pace of the runner, 
and the latter will never find the ball floating ahead of him 
just out of reach, nor will an opponent breaking through 
be able to snatch it on the fly, as has sometimes, if infre- 
quently, happened in the past. 

The position assumed behind the center is largely open to 
debate, and varies with the natural ability of the candi- 
dates. Some men face the center, legs wide apart so that 
the other backs can see the ball at all times, while others 
turn their right side to the snapper back. The full facing 
position is especially good if the quarter is ambidextrous in 
his passing, but has the disadvantage of requiring quick 



118 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

moving in the event of a fake kick. Time wa.3 when the 
quarter took up his position well back and to the left on 
kick formation, whether the play was to be an actual kick 
or a fake followed by a run. Nowadays, he gets out to 
that post with the snapping of the ball. 

The quarter who stands sidewise to the center should be 
careful to hold his hands always in the same position, 
whether the kick be bona fide or a fake. There is a ten- 
dency to spread the hands a trifle when the kick is to be 
genuine, and bring them closer together when there is to 
be a run from the kick formation. This is a dangerous 
tendency and should be discouraged as early as possible, 
just as the center should be careful, when a kick is to be 
made, not to lift the ball from the ground in one motion 
and shoot it back with a second, distinct motion, when 
making the long pass to the kicker. These are often little 
things in practice, but not infrequently vital in the big 
game. The quarter should always make certain to get into 
the interference, for this is one of his primary duties, and 
even in the case of a sharp dash through the center he can 
lend his aid in bending back the line. It is not important 
that the quarter have weight, but he must have speed, and 
a good head on his shoulders if nothing else. Speed and 
brains will win a place in this position on the most impor- 
tant of teams when the candidate who may hold the univer- 
sity strength record is hopelessly floundering. The quarter 
must have all the qualities of a good halfback, for on the 
direct pass he will often run with the ball, and he may also 
be used on the receiving end of the forward pass. He should 
be also a good forward passer, and if possible an accurate 
drop and placement kicker, although place kicking and 
punting may sometimes be turned over to line men if kickers 
are scarce in the backfield. 

The ideal backfield contains four punters, drop and place- 
ment kickers, and forward passers, but such a backfield is 



ADVANCED INDIVIDUAL PLAY 119 

as rare as the white rhinoceros. But if both fullback and 
quarter can punt, forward pass and drop-kick, the head 
coach should be happy indeed, for around these two can be 
built any number of promising plays. The final quality 
of the quarter, in which he should surpass every one of his 
team mates, big and little, is immunity to injury, for he is 
the brains of the team, and should be in action from whistle 
to whistle. 

On the defense the backs are worked quite as hard as on 
the attack, for there are all sorts of plays to guard against. 
The men must not be drawn out of position by fakes and 
threats of fakes, and they must above all things tackle 
savagely and accurately, and catch kicks cleanly. I mean 
catching kicks, too, not allowing them to strike the ground 
in the hope of picking them up on the bound. The safest 
method of catching kicks, of course, is to take them in a 
pocket formed by the arms, one leg and stomach — in no 
event should the ball be taken against the chest — but 
there are times when the ball has to be taken on the run in 
any manner possible, and the backs would do well to practise 
catching the leather in their hands in the style of the Carlisle 
Indians, who have from time to time learned to catch the 
ball like a baseball. The advantage gained in taking the 
ball on the run is very great, for the runner will already 
be in his stride and is very apt to be overrun by the ends 
coming down the field; it is then only necessary to follow 
the clearest path up the field — up the side line if one of the 
ends has been by any clever blocking or streak of luck 
turned in instead of out. It is when well done in his own 
territory and against the wind that the catcher of kicks is 
put to the severest test, for he cannot tell whether he will 
have to face long kicking or short, and in the case of a ball 
falling close to his goal line he will have to use his own judg- 
ment as to whether to make the catch or allow the leather 
to go over the line for a touchdown. 



120 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

Were the ball round instead of being what the rule book 
terms a " prolate spheroid," there would be little difficulty 
in making a choice, for in the former case it would be cer- 
tain to go over the goal line from a reasonable distance. 
But the yellow egg is often apt to bound straight up in the 
air or even back toward the kicker, and even if captured in 
front of the line, the back is in serious danger of being 
thrown across the last chalk mark for a safety, a most 
discouraging happening for the team so scored upon. The 
safety is one of the game's demoralizers, and the defensive 
back thrown across his own line might as well be taken out 
of the game, as a general rule, for his nerve will not be as 
good as it was before the score was made. 

Backs who are lying in wait for kicks must coach each 
other just as do outfielders in baseball, and the back who 
is making the catch and has yelled "I have it" must be 
protected and covered by his associate. Above all things 
he must not take his eye off the ball in order to look up the 
field, for he will need to concentrate his attention on the 
leather until he has it safely gripped. After that he should 
take one glance at the field in the course of the first lunge 
straight ahead or diagonally — never laterally, or back. It 
might easily be possible to dodge one or both of the ends 
by running back, but in so doing all work of the players up 
the field in blocking will be nullified, and the opposing 
eleven will have time in which to form and come down on 
the catcher rapidly. Needless to say, perhaps, the first 
duty of the non-catching back is to put out one or both 
of the ends, going to the earth with them if necessary. 

As the man with the ball glances up the field he must 
decide instantly on which side of the gridiron the greatest 
execution has been done by the defense. If one of his own 
backs or ends has put out one of the opposing ends, or even 
turned him in, the runner should make for that side, and 
after a short dash turn straight up the field. The back who 



ADVANCED INDIVIDUAL PLAY 121 

is putting out the end should down him so as to fall across 
him if possible and so pin him to the earth, that the runner 
may have all the time possible to get up the field at top 
speed before he strikes the main body of the opposing team. 
If the run has been well to the side it is barely possible 
that the opponents have been pulled over in that direction, 
leaving a "broken field " on the other side of the gridiron. 
In this case the man who can make a sharp turn and cross 
the field at a diagonal to the five-yard lines will be able to 
add many yards to the length of his run. 

In facing kicking with the wind of the extremely clever 
order that is frequently in evidence nowadays, the back 
should remember that while the spiral, or twisting ball, 
that rides the wind for a long time, will give him valuable 
seconds in which to maneuver, he must make his judgment 
of the ball's final destination on the basis of the early part 
of its flight, for once well on the downward course the ball 
will come very fast, and usually far short of the spot where 
the uninitiated would naturally expect it to land. Once in 
the zone formed by the field and the lower tiers of the big 
stands the air will usually be still, save when the wind is 
very strong, and close to the ground there is apt to be a 
back-draft comparable with the undertow at the seashore. 
These things will have to be taken into account when facing 
the kicking game, and a study of the field of play and its 
air currents, or what Walter Camp has called "wind 
echoes" should be undertaken by all the backs before the 
big games. 

There are peculiarities of wind and sun in the Harvard 
Stadium not to be found at Yale Field, and vice versa, and 
conditions at Franklin Field are different from those at 
West Point. On the "Plains" the wind is steadier, and 
continues its influence close to the ground, making low, fast 
kicking very difficult to handle. Again, since there is far 
more sky background at the Point than at most other 



122 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

fields, the lofty kicking is also difficult to judge. Many a 
sure catcher has come to grief against the Army for these 
reasons. There is far less of the "wind echo" effect at 
Yale Field than in the Harvard Stadium. With the 
"bowl," or closed end of the stadium behind him, the catcher 
of kicks is apt to be in difficulties most of the time. When 
the wind strikes into the open end of the stadium diago- 
nally it swings off the farther wall in an arc that is apt to 
terminate in a back current short of the goal line, and in 
this situation the ball not only descends very fast, but also 
very erratically. The man who is preparing to meet the 
kicking game there can verify these statements easily enough 
by experimenting with bits of paper. A little experimenting 
with straws even in the course of the game itself will do no 
harm. 

With kicking at its scientific height to-day almost any 
backfield is apt to strike moments of demoralization. Under 
such conditions it is a good plan to signal for a fair catch 
a few times in order to steady down and get a better 
understanding of the range. The signalling may be aban- 
doned as soon as the backs are once more in form. 

Under the rule that permits quick kicking under the 
scrimmage line, or very close to it, an attacking team that 
sweeps across the center of the field will very often open a 
quick, low, kicking assault, and this, too, is difficult to face. 
In general, however, it is safe to say that these kicks are more 
apt to bound forward than back, and the defense should 
take plenty of room, in order not to meet the ball on the 
half-bound. Princeton once won a game against the 
Carlisle Indians at the Polo Grounds with this low-kicking 
attack. The ball was wet and hard to handle, and the 
kicks were driven right at the feet of the Indian backs. 
They failed to take the necessary room and were soon in a 
state bordering on demoralization. Other instances might 
be cited. That the ball will bound forward a great deal 



ADVANCED INDIVIDUAL PLAY 123 

of the time on these low kicks has been amply demonstrated 
by teams that have attempted to work the old onside kick 
successfully. Two or three years ago Pennsylvania literally 
bombarded a Michigan eleven with these low, onside kicks, 
but the ball would not bound up so that the end, who was 
right on the spot, could recover, and the Western backs, 
taking plenty of room, picked up the leather cleanly and 
blocked the well-conceived Quaker plan of action. 

When the defensive tean is playing its ends on the line 
against the kicking game the two backs who are in the first 
line of backfield defense should concern themselves with the 
ends coming down the field under the punting. These 
they should endeavor to pin to the ground or turn in, so 
that there will be a clear path up the side of the field. If 
the ends are played back of the line, they will have the first 
crack at the opposing ends. They should turn and come 
back down the field with them, also turning them in if 
possible, while the backs look after other forwards, fast 
tackles or guards, who are also in the hunt. 

It is important to get these other line men out of the 
way, for they will often nail the catcher of a kick even if : 
the end has been able to do no more than stagger him for an 
instant by an incomplete tackle. Much of the arrange- 
ment of the defense depends upon the distance the kicker 
stands behind his own line of forwards. Should he be 
reasonably close every effort should be made to block him; 
while if, as was the case with Coy and others of his type, 
he often kicks from eleven or twelve yards behind the scrim- 
mage line, the attention should be turned toward keeping 
his men from getting down the field, blocking as many 
men as possible right on the first line of defense. This 
feature belongs properly to a consideration of generalship, 
but is mentioned here to show that the individuals in the 
defense will have to adapt their personal efforts to the needs 
of the immediate situation. 



124 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

While on the subject of catching kicks the catching of 
forward passes, both offensively and defensively, may well 
be considered. This sort of catching has to be done with 
the hands alone, and the advantage is of course with the 
defense, for the player in that case is facing the pass, and 
while holding on to the ball once it is touched is the desidera- 
tum, the mere beating of it down will spoil the play as a 
ground gainer. If the back cannot get both hands on the 
ball, he should at least knock it down with one. On the 
offense both backs and ends should be expert handlers of 
the forward pass, and nothing but practice, constant and 
intelligent, will make them so. Some teams shoot the pass 
direct to the receiver, others to where the receiver should 
be at a certain instant. The former practice has the 
advantage that the receiver will be able to turn considerably 
to receive the ball, while the man who has to be at a desig- 
nated spot, reaching there after the ball has left the passer's 
hand, must take the leather any way he can get it and in 
mid-career. The eligible receivers should get out to their 
stations without stopping to look back until they are about 
ready to take the ball. Often it is' a good plan not to turn 
at all but to wait for the yell "Hike" given by the passer 
the moment he lets go of the ball. A too obvious turning 
gives away the play. These little hints belong properly 
to another chapter, and are given here to show how neces- 
sary it is for the ends and backs to learn to receive the pass 
"in almost any position, using the hands only. 

Tackling, in the backfield, is one of the most important 
features of a team's work, for under the rules of recent years 
the secondary defense has had more than its share of the 
tackling to do. In any impact between two men of equal 
weight the one moving at the greater speed will suffer the 
least from shock. This is a good rule for the tackier to remem- 
ber when he is not working in the open field, for a too close 
adherence to it in the latter situation makes for many a 



ADVANCED INDIVIDUAL PLAY 125 

missed tackle. With the runner close at hand, however, 
say just clearing the line, the back should go in fast to 
meet him, and hit him with the shoulders just above the 
runner's knees. At the same time the arms should close 
around the runner's legs, the wrist of one hand seized by 
the thumb and fingers of the other. The hands are used 
only as a last resort, and when it is impossible to make a 
perfect tackle. In such cases the tackier brings the runner 
down any way he can. If he can get even one hand on the 
back there is a chance that there will be just enough of a 
delay to let another tackier make the job complete. In 
this head-on tackle it is well not to leave the feet, for 
the shock will be harder on the runner, who is without 
support, than upon the tackier, who still has the support 
of one braced foot. Just as the tackier makes his strike he 
should shoot forward horizontally, very close to the ground, 
getting all the "drive" possible out of his legs, in order 
that he may break through the runner's straight arm. It 
is well to go under the arm, if possible, but if this cannot 
be done, the tackier should strike so hard as to beat the arm 
down and pinion it in the tackle. 

In meeting the runner on either side the body should be 
thrown across in front of the legs and the latter pinned 
against the tackler's chest. If the tackier has made a hard 
enough drive this will turn his man over and bring his own 
body on top, at the same time throwing the runner back 
toward his own goal. The tackler's lunge will have to be 
longer than in the case of the head-on tackle, to be certain 
of bringing the body well across the runner's legs. If the 
tackier be big and powerful and the runner by any chance 
carries the ball on the wrong side — i.e., on the same side on 
which the tackle is to be made — it is a good plan for the 
tackier to strike the runner just where he is carrying the 
ball, in the hope of causing a fumble. Such a tackle is 
apt to spin the runner and shake him up a great deal, and, 



126 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

carrying the ball on the wrong side, that arm will be working 
naturally more than it ought to, and the grip on the leather 
be insecure. 

When two backs strike a runner at the same time they 
should be certain, by means of previous agreement and 
practice, to thoroughly cover the runner with their double 
tackle, throwing him as far back as possible. The defensive 
back must remember that he has the use of his hands all 
the time, and be sure to use them on any interferer who 
happens to confront him. It is necessary sometimes to 
lunge in and carry this interferer off his feet and into the 
runner if possible, but as a rule the tackier should stand 
him off with his hands and arms, just as if he were the 
runner and the interferer a tackier. In case the play has 
been partly stopped at the line and the runner is surrounded 
by forwards who because of the press have been unable 
to bring him down and are slowly giving ground, the second- 
ary defense man should come up fast and tear into the 
group with his hands and arms to reach the runner. At 
other times it would be well for him — this especially the 
duty of the fullback — to drive in low and gather in a double 
armfull of legs, friend and foe alike. This will topple the 
mass over and often uncover the runner so that another 
defensive back can get at him. 

Open-field tackling is one of the most difficult features 
of football. The runner will be at top speed with all the 
advantage of many yards of field in which to maneuver. 
He will be able to use change of pace and direction and will 
have the stiff arm at his service. In such a situation the 
tackier who comes up too fast will find the runner flitting 
past him like a ghost, or will easily be tipped over by the 
straight arm. Some little ground will have to be sacrificed 
in such circumstances. The tackier may come up fast 
until he gets within five yards or a little less, of the runner. 
Right here he should slow down and prepare to lunge directly 



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ADVANCED INDIVIDUAL PLAY 127 

ahead, or to right or left. This instant's pause will prevent 
the overrunning of the man with the ball, the commonest 
fault of ambitious but green players. The action immedi- 
ately following the pause, however, should be of the hardest 
description, the final lunge making up in drive what is 
lacking in actual speed. 

The quarterback, the ultimate defensive player, should be 
the surest tackier on the team, for he is the man on whom 
the eleven relies to prevent touchdowns once the runner is 
clear. The quarter should come up, if possible, a little to 
one side of the runner, so that the natural course of the man 
with the ball will be toward the sideline. The tackier 
in this case can afford to slow up considerably in order to 
make certain of spoiling any sudden dodge, or of driving 
the runner across the side line. Five or even ten yards 
sacrificed to the certainty of the tackle will not hurt the 
defensive team, since a touchdown has been saved. 

In all side- and open-field tackling it is as well to come as 
near leaving the feet as the rules permit, because there is 
greater space to cover. One dragging foot slows up the 
tackier very little, and still keeps him within the boundaries 
set by the laws of football. All these little but very impor- 
tant matters of individual technique are to be mastered 
only by practice. The tackling dummy is useful only if 
it is properly handled. In this sort of work a great deal of 
time should be spent in teaching the men how to keep from 
falling over their own feet, a natural tendency of green 
players. The coach who is handling the bag and directing 
the practice should have an assistant whose duty it should 
be to correct the tackle after the bag has been yanked 
down. No player should be allowed to get up off the 
ground after a bad tackle until he has been obliged to re- 
arrange himself in the position he would have assumed had 
the tackle been a clean one. This applies to tackling 



128 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

actual players as well as the dummy. Down-field tackling 
will be treated in the following chapter. 

The technique of line play, so far as the individual is 
concerned, is as difficult to teach as it is to learn, but tells 
tremendously once it is really mastered. Its absence 
spells almost sure disaster. The masters of this department 
of football always have in mind an ideal, and too often 
material that never can be whipped into ideal shape must 
be used. They simply do the best they can, varying their 
own theories in individual instances and getting their results 
now by one method, now by another. The forwards are 
in for a steady grind from the beginning of the season to 
its close. They have so little conspicuous work to do that 
the real worth of their services is not appreciated by more 
than twenty per cent, of the crowd on the day of a big game. 
This will continue to be the case until the public learns 
enough about it to criticize intelligently, or until the ranks 
of the spectators receive a few hundred thousand more 
recruits from the football field. I know a man who is a 
splendid all-round coach who is nevertheless much hurt 
when he is called a " great line coach. " As a matter of 
fact his eminence in line coaching is something of which 
to be inordinately proud. Indeed, one of the reasons why 
he is so good an offensive coach for the backs is his ability 
to read the weaknesses in the opposing line by means of his 
mastery of line technique. 

There are, generally speaking, two systems of line play on 
defense, one used all over the field, the other usually confined 
to the space between the two twenty-yard lines. The first 
is the low-charging system, the second the stand-up style. 
Their use depends largely upon the natural material avail- 
able. If the line is big, rangy, and heavy, the stand-up 
style may be used to deadly advantage. If the material 
is only of medium weight, the coach would do well to stick 
to the low-charging method all over the field. The first 



ADVANCED INDIVIDUAL PLAY 129 

system is well adapted to the ripping, grinding, tearing, 
breaking through style of line play so much in evidence at 
West Point, the second makes it possible to turn the attack 
back upon itself, to spoil it, bottle it up and tangle it with 
its own forwards. The stand-up style is valuable when the 
player can carry his man upstream, although in the other 
system the same thing is accomplished to a considerable 
extent. The stand-up style permits of one maneuver that 
the low-charging style does not — "stalling"; stiff-arming 
one's opponent and swinging round to right or left. The 
two styles, as I have said, may be advantageously combined, 
but it takes a football artist to do it. 

One variation of the stand-up system, used by one of 
the most successful teams in the East, is that of blocking up 
the line with the bodies of both offensive and defensive 
players, thus making a solid wall, impenetrable to the 
attack. The objection to this method is, however, that it 
allows the play to get under way and the interference for 
end and tackle runs is not so quickly broken up. In the 
system alluded to the defensive player chucks his opponent 
under the chin, straightening him up in the charge, and 
lifts one of his legs, thus getting him to one side, bound, 
practically in a helpless position, and choking the line with 
his body. 

In all sound styles, however, the charge of the defensive 
line goes with the count of " one-two-three " — three distinct 
motions into the attacking line, ending in the final upstream 
heave that simply smothers the play. 

If the coach has been so fortunate as to have an unusually 
fine squad he will find his line as finally chosen freighted 
about as follows: Ends, 165-185 lbs. ; Tackles, 185-200 lbs.; 
Guards, 190-215 lbs. ; Center, 175-200 lbs. The top weights 
given do not necessarily imply lack of speed. Indeed, 
there have been stars at the following extremes : Ends, 132 
and 190 lbs.; Tackles, 165 and 235 lbs.; Guards, 168 and 230 

9 



130 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

lbs., and Centers, 160 and 250 lbs. — these on high-class 
teams, too. But the weights first mentioned are close 
enough to the ideal. With such a line a coach has a set of 
forwards that should be able to play any style of defense — 
to stand up and look over the opposing line when necessary, 
and to charge low and hard when the situation calls for that 
system. 

Above all things, the forward must use his hands all the 
time. Some men swing their arms nervously, and then 
bring them through when the ball is snapped, while others 
hold one or both arms rigid, behind them, until in actual 
action. There is nothing radically wrong with either 
method so long as the forward gets his hands and arms into 
the play the instant it starts. He has his opponent at a 
great disadvantage since the latter, under the rules, when 
attacking, cannot use his hands or arms, and must block 
with his body, shoulder, or legs. Furthermore, the defensive 
forward, by swinging through with his hands, can stagger 
his opponent before the latter can get in the full strength of 
his charge across the neutral zone, this zone, by the way, 
being one of the greatest of aids to the defense. 

Should the offensive forward be playing extremely low, the 
defensive player would do well to pull him over on his face 
and go on through him into the play, whereas should the 
opponent be playing on the customary plane, or a little too 
high, every effort should be made to lift him, to straighten 
him up and carry him back into the play. Since most 
teams use line men in the interference, this carrying back 
of the protecting forward will tend to smash such inter- 
ference and disrupt the play, at the same time allowing the 
defensive forward a chance to tackle the runner with his 
own legs nicely braced, so that the weight can be used to 
bend back the upper part of the runner's body and put 
him down toward his own goal. High tackling in the line, 
when the men are strong enough to bend the runner over 



ADVANCED INDIVIDUAL PLAY 131 

backward, is hardly a serious fault. On the other hand, 
should the runner be one of those short, stocky backs who 
run like rabbits, very close to the ground, the defensive 
forward would do better to smother him as quickly as 
possible, pinning him to earth. A great deal rests with the 
individual brain work of the defensive forward, who should 
do his utmost to "fox" his opponent into an awkward 
position, wherein his balance will be insecure. There 
should be every attempt to deceive the enemy as to which 
side the crash will come, and as to whether he is to be 
pulled over or carried back. 

The work of the center on defense has been treated at 
some length in a previous chapter. As a general rule the 
position of all the forwards save the center should be with 
the outside foot — the foot farthest from the center — on the 
line, the other foot braced behind, both toes toward the line, 
and the whole body, with the back straight, at right angles 
to the line of scrimmage. The inside, or both hands, should 
be on the ground, save when the forward is playing the high, 
or stand-up defense. After a brief glance at the formation 
assumed by the opponents, the eyes of the forward should be 
on the ball, and he should start his charge the exact instant 
the ball is snapped. He can keep watch of his opponent 
oat of the tail of his eye, and he should never let the ball 
disappear from view until the conclusion of the play. 

Defensive guards play a shade outside their opponents 
and drive them across the play should the latter be aimed 
directly at center, while if the play goes outside of the guard 
position, it is a wise plan to charge through outside the 
attacking guard and into the runner or his interference. 
Should the play go wide of his position the defensive guard 
should charge through and follow it in the hope of making 
a tackle from behind. When the stand-up defense is used 
the guard should stiff-arm his man and swing around 
behind his own line to support the threatened spot. These 



132 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

directions hold good in the case of a balanced formation 
of the line. The defensive shift to meet the attacking 
shift is treated at length in a subsequent chapter. Above 
all things the guard must follow the ball so closely as to 
make sure that no crisscross or delayed pass will coax 
him out of place so as to compel him to leave an opening in 
his own position. 

With the guard just outside his opponent the tackle may 
take considerably more room, taking care to be outside the 
outside man on the attacking line; he should not be coaxed 
out too far to protect the space between himself and his 
guard save when he can carry two of his opponents with 
him. The tackle may handle himself with more latitude 
than the guard, facing slightly in the direction of the oppos- 
ing backs should he deem it necessary. It is a good plan 
for him to do a little restless shifting in his position in order 
to coax his opponents into giving away the direction of the 
play. He should keep his eyes on the ball and charge 
the instant that it is snapped. If his end is playing the 
waiting game he should drive through at once and ram 
into the interference, carefully keeping his feet the while, 
whereas, should his end be coached in the smashing style, 
he should drive into the opposing end with arms outstretched, 
straightening the latter up, and keeping his body well away. 
He will need to keep his head up and watch for the direction 
of the play, as well as note the work done by his own end 
in breaking it up. For the moment he is playing both end 
and tackle, and his weight gives him the chance to "stall." 

If the play goes outside his position he should work 
free of the end on the outside and tackle the runner, while 
if the play is aimed directly at him or inside his position,, 
he will do well to drive the opposing end into it, or charge 
through inside the end and smash into the play. If the play is 
headed for the other side of the line he should go through 
and follow around in the hope of tackling from behind. 



ADVANCED INDIVIDUAL PLAY 133 

The defensive end should play all the way from one to 
five yards from his tackle, according to the system used, 
assuming the position for the sprinter's start. Needless, 
perhaps, to say, he should start with the snap of the ball, 
and if playing the smashing style, should get right into the 
interference and at the man with the ball as fast and as 
hard as possible, keeping his feet; and if unable to reach the 
runner causing as much wreckage as he can. His course 
should be just enough off the straight line to enable him to 
turn the interference and runner in, but this should not be 
accomplished at the cost of getting on the spot promptly. 
If playing the waiting game, he should run forward straight 
back of the line about a yard, and then go in on the outside, 
keeping the interference at arm's length, nailing the runner 
if possible, and if not, turning the mass toward his own 
tackle. In both cases, should the play be headed for the 
opposite side, the end should follow around on the jump, 
alert to make the tackle or pick up a fumbled ball. 

If the defensive end is played back on punts he must 
take care of the offensive end going down the field, whereas 
if he is playing on the smashing system it is his duty to go 
in and hurry the kick and block the kick if possible. The 
greatest danger in following around is that the end will 
overrun a play that depends for its success on the double 
or delayed pass. Of one thing the end must always be 
certain, and that is never to let the interferers reach his 
body with their shoulders, in which case he will be put out 
of the play, and the interference will continue in its course 
very little shaken up. A good defensive end is never slow 
to leave his feet when he finds it absolutely necessary in 
order to wreck the interference, and the man who is playing 
the smashing style is in better shape to do so, I believe, than 
he who is coached in the waiting system. It is the end's 
duty to hurry forward passes as much as possible, and here 
again the advantage lies with the smashing end in that he 



134 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

can go in in perfect safety, confident of the support of his 
tackle and halfback, and spoil one of those indeterminate 
"forward pass or run" maneuvers that sometimes gain a 
lot of ground if the attack be compelled to make its decision 
at an early stage. 

On the offensive a capable center makes all his passes 
with a single, sweeping motion, and when necessary to 
look at the back to whom the pass is to be made, concen- 
trates his attention on that single feature of his play, trusting 
to get the charge on his opponent after the ball is cleanly 
sent away. Some coaches maintain that the center should 
look at his opponent when making the pass to the quarter- 
back, and at the back when making the direct pass, but it 
is a better plan, I think, if he will put his head down and 
look backward between his legs now and then even when 
making the pass to the quarter. In this way the fact 
that a direct pass is to be made will not be advertised for 
the benefit of the enemy. The center, on the attack, should 
play on a low plane, with his knees wide apart, the ball in 
both hands opposite his forward foot, elbows inside his 
knees, and his back perfectly straight. Indeed all the for- 
wards should remember to keep their backs straight all the 
time on the offense, for this is one of the keynotes of the 
successful, sustained charge. 

Forwards play closer together on attack than on defense, 
crowding in as much as is necessary, and often as closely 
as is permitted under the rules, keeping in mind the maxim 
that "the territory behind the scrimmage line is sacred to 
the backs." The word "sacred" is a strong word, but not 
too strong to suit the backfield men, who dislike having 
their forwards let opposing line men come streaming through 
on them before they can get started. 

The best position for the offensive forward is with his 
outside foot and his inside hand on the line of scrimmage, 
and his eye on the ball, save that some latitude may be 



ADVANCED INDIVIDUAL PLAY 135 

allowed in the latter matter when a starting signal is used. 
If the play is going directly through his position, the center 
should charge absolutely straight into his man, while if to 
one side, he should make certain to charge with his shoulder 
and his body on the same side as the play, and drive the 
defensive center away from the direction taken by the 
runner. When the play goes outside of tackle, on either 
side, the center charges clean through and takes care of 
the first man in the secondary defense. In making the long 
pass to the fullback for a kick, the center should sacrifice 
every other consideration to that of perfect passing, and on 
no account is he to pass too high. Better a pass along the 
ground than over the back's head, for in the former case 
there is still a chance of getting the kick away, while in the 
latter the kicker is in for serious trouble. 

Every forward must remember that on the offense as 
it is planned nowadays, he is expected to do as much inter- 
fering as the backs — this in addition to the regular blocking 
and opening of holes. For this reason he should be as 
quick to start backward as forward, pushing off with his 
forward foot, and wheeling on the pivot of his back foot. 
The forwards should note carefully the positions of the second- 
ary defense, for they will frequently be called upon to go 
through and put these men out of the play after they have 
bumped their opponent just enough to slow them up and 
so protect their backs. The line man who goes through in 
order to interfere, will find that he has the same problem 
before him as the interfering back, and should use the same 
methods of blocking, already described. 

Guards and tackles generally rest upon one knee until 
the lineup is complete and the team about ready for the 
play, when they stiffen into their regular charging positions. 
This will rest them a great deal when there is a great deal 
of smashing attack to be done, but they should never let 
the starting signal or the snap of the ball find them with 



136 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

one knee on the ground. Should a guard find his opponent 
playing high, he must be sure to get under and lift him, 
while if his opponent is too low for that, the aggressive guard 
should pin him down with his own body, so that the play 
may pass on over him. 

In case the guard is called upon to get into the interference 
behind his own line instead of beyond the line of scrimmage 
— a scheme of debatable value nowadays — he will have to 
step off first with his back foot in order to be sure to dis- 
engage himself from the center, and aid himself at the same 
time by pushing off from the center with his hand, which 
also aids the center in his own charge. It takes a very fast 
guard to get into interference behind his own line, for the 
defensive guard on the opposite side is likely to get through 
before he can get away and so upset the apple cart. In 
lining up the center should be quickly in place, otherwise 
the play cannot be speeded up, and the guards should be 
with him like a pair of brothers. With this trio promptly 
in place the rest of the formation is quickly and easily made. 

The tackle on attack takes the position already defined 
for the guard, except that he is about an arm's length from 
his own guard. Plays that go the opposite side of the line 
give him splendid opportunities for interfering with the 
secondary defense, which, with the tackle, has become a 
more and more important duty year after year. Our 
tackle will find himself about midway between the defensive 
guard and tackle, and the latter he must in no case follow 
out. When the opposite side is attacked by his team he 
should bump, rather than block the tackle out, and then 
turn sharply in to take one of the men in the secondary 
defense. Should the play be beyond the tackle on the oppo- 
site side he may either cross the line of scrimmage and veer 
over toward the play, putting out the nearest man in the 
secondary, or he may jump back from his station in the line 
and get into the interference. It is asking a great deal 



ADVANCED INDIVIDUAL PLAY 137 

nowadays to expect a tackle to lead it, but he will find a 
useful place in it somewhere. Personally, I believe the 
tackle is of greater use beyond the line of scrimmage. 

When the play goes through on his own side between his 
center and guard, he should help his guard with the defensive 
guard, the end meanwhile looking after the tackle. On 
other plays around his own side, too, he should as a rule 
concern himself with the opposing guard, leaving the big 
fullback and the end to care for the defensive tackle, unless 
the latter is playing in too close, in which case he may be 
driven back. 

On the attack much depends on the clever work of the 
ends, who if they are heavy as well as fast, will be of great 
value to the offense. Their particular care is the oppos- 
ing tackle, whom they must sometimes put out alone, some- 
times with the aid of a back. The end should play close 
in beside his tackle and devote his entire attention to the 
opposing tackle, whom he must smother at all costs if the 
play comes on his side of the center. If the play goes 
through between him and his own center, he should be 
certain to block the tackle out, leaving his feet and throwing 
his body and legs across him if necessary to make assurance 
doubly sure. If the play is an end run he should turn the 
tackle in. It is a mistake to follow out a wide playing 
tackle for this purpose, for if the defensive tackle is playing 
too wide it is the business of the quarterback to see that 
the play is sent inside instead of outside of his position. 
When the end sets sail under a forward pass he may bump 
his man just a second if the pass is to be short, and start 
away cleanly if the heave is to be a long one. The end's 
downfield work is discussed in another chapter. 

The hints on line play given above are merely the simplest 
principles of the art, and the system has to be made to fit 
the material. There will be keystones in the line both on 
attack and defense, around whom the system will have 



138 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

to be built — unusually good men who will serve as " anchors " 
on the defense, and as " steam rollers" on the offense. It 
will be necessary sometimes, for this reason, to change the 
positions of the men on attack and defense, so as to get 
the strongest and best balanced combination in action 
regardless of the nomenclature of the positions. For this 
reason it is a good plan to familiarize the candidates with 
the normal conditions of play on both sides of the line, so 
that shifting may be done from time to time, and the player 
on one side of the line feel at home on the other. Again, 
what one man can do in the way of blocking with the shoul- 
ders, another can do better with the hips, and vice versa. 
It takes a real live coach, handling real live material to 
make a line, but the basic principles remain the same, and 
the candidate who follows carefully the instructions here 
given will find that he is at least on the right path. 



CHAPTER IX 

ADVANCED TEAM PLAY — TALKING IN ACTION — THE SIGNALS 

In the course of the development of any first-class eleven 
there comes a time when the finest possible touches in team 
play must be put on. This ultimate polish is the result 
of instruction that has been absorbed throughout the 
season, coupled with the assimilation of ideas that are not 
given to the eleven perhaps until in the very last days of 
practice. A naturally intelligent eleven will take its polish 
at an earlier date than a plodding team, and the coaches 
constantly face the problem of deciding just how fast to 
give to the men the real finesse of team play. Some of 
this is in charge of the individual coaches, some in the sole 
charge of the head coach, as for instance the final advice as 
to how to meet and use to advantage certain peculiarities 
in the play of the biggest opponent of the year. In any 
intelligent system of coaching the idea of mutual help will 
have been instilled into the eleven from the beginning of 
the season, but its very finest stage may not be achieved 
until well toward the day of the big game. 

The eleven must be fairly well advanced, for instance, 
before it can take up a study of the value of " talking" the 
game, but no high-class team has ever been silent in action, 
and to-day the talk that is heard is all for a definite purpose. 
It is not done with the idea of rattling the opponent, for 
the first-class eleven is too busy to waste breath in any such 
process. Practically all the talk heard on the field to-day 
belongs to the game. It is not intended to annoy the foe, 
but to make sure that every man on the team is helping 

139 



140 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

every other man and saving him extra and purposeless 
steps. Of course it has long been customary for the kicker 
to call the direction and distance of the ball whenever he 
sends away a punt, but the downfield calling of the men 
behind to the men in front belongs to the newer school. 

The kicker cries as the ball leaves his instep, "Left," 
"Right," or "Short," according to the direction of the 
leather and the distance it seems likely to travel. This 
avoids the necessity of the ends on their way down the field 
making more than one turn to judge the flight of the ball, 
and, indeed, there are ends who with the cry of the kicker in 
their ears, and the faces of the receiving backs by which to 
judge, do not need to turn at all, and so are saved valuable 
time and any distraction of the attention from the men they 
have to pass and the man they have to tackle. To a lesser 
extent this crying out of the kicker aids the other forwards, 
and adds to efficiency in following the ball. There is no 
reason, indeed, why the punter should not continue to call 
as long as there is a chance for his men to hear him, for if 
the ends are fairly sure of the direction of the leather when 
they meet the defending backs, and they know that it is 
well to one side, one of the ends can with a fair degree of 
safety turn inside of his man rather than out, and so reach 
the catcher in much quicker time. 

In most systems of downfield work under the kicking 
game the ends are supposed to keep outside the man whose 
business it is to delay them, on the theory that should they 
be shut off from a tackle there is at least no chance for a 
long run back up the side line, as the defensive back will be 
compelled to come up the center of the field and into the 
arms of the other members of the kicking team. But there 
are times when a cut across would be most effective, and if 
talking — or rather shouting — the direction from behind can 
steer the end properly he will have a better opportunity to 
make a brilliant tackle. 



ADVANCED TEAM PLAY 141 

This downfield talking under kicks should be passed on 
from man to man, for the guards at least, if not the tackles, 
will have an opportunity to look behind them and be in 
position to help the ends. Of course when the direction is 
sharp, the whole line swings considerably, and of course, 
too, there is a preliminary signal indicating the probable 
direction and length of the punt. All good things go astray 
sometimes in the heat of a hard game, however, and the 
fullback and other members of the team should have some 
safeguard against being led astray on a kick that has 
accidentally gone amiss. This is especially true when the 
kicker is forced to do his punting against the wind, when 
no amount of care can make certain in advance of the 
distance and direction of the leather. Again, if the team 
becomes accustomed to talking in the kicking game it can 
be taught to do the same when other plays are used. 

The forward pass is another downfield play in which 
talking is of the utmost value. The cry of the passer at the 
moment he lets go of the ball makes it unnecessary for the 
eligible receivers to turn to look for the leather until that 
moment. It is the custom under many systems for the 
passer to yell "hike" or "ball" or something like that the 
instant the ball leaves his hand, and if the men are accus- 
tomed to it they will have a fair chance of getting the leather 
even when the ball is passed not to an individual but to a 
previously indicated spot. It is also very baffling to the 
defensive backs, for the instant one of the eligibles is seen 
to turn he is covered, but up to the moment his turn is made 
any one of these men has plenty of room in which to man- 
euver and to take the pass. 

But it is in the case of the blocked kick well out in the 
field that the team that uses the "talking" system will be 
rewarded — sometimes with a touchdown. Let us suppose 
that a kick has been blocked and a member of the team 
that did the blocking snatches up the ball with a clear field 



142 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

before him. He knows that no matter how fast he may be 
he probably will be unable, encumbered as he is by the ball, 
to beat a member of the pursuing team to the goal line 
without a comfortable start and without fair covering from 
behind. Now the first impulse is to turn to see how many 
of his own men are close behind him, and which of the enemy 
is in the van of the pursuit. It is the most natural impulse 
in the world, for the man with the ball under these conditions 
feels that he has a chance that may, and in most cases never 
will, come to him again in his lifetime. He is apt to feel 
that he will risk a look over his shoulder, even if he has 
been told again and again under no circumstances to do so. 
If he does turn around he only gives time to his pursuers and 
greatly lessens thereby the chance for a successful trip to 
his opponent's goal line. 

He can be saved from this danger by the shouting of his 
companions, always provided that they have been taught 
to do that sort of thing without confusion. He should be 
able to tell without looking around just which of his men 
are behind and just which are nearest. In the event that 
he has been better protected in his " getaway " on one side 
than the other he can also be told whether to veer to the right 
or left, that the strongest support may be brought up on 
that side. It matters not how fleet of foot are his own men 
who are following him as long as he feels that they are within 
reach of his pursuers. There remains for him then nothing 
but to summon up all the speed of which he is capable, 
remember not to attempt Brobdignagian strides, and hold 
to his course regardless of the enemy, or veer sharply right 
or left, according to the shouted instructions. Constant 
practice of this blocking of kicks and calling to the man 
who snatches up the ball will sometimes reward the coaches 
and the team with an unexpected victory. 

In the line, of course, there is less open talking, but 
more quiet signaling from man to man, for in opening holes 



ADVANCED TEAM PLAY 143 

two men may find it necessary to work in a way different 
from what had been planned, and some difference in the 
amount of room taken may mean all the difference in the 
success or failure of the play. In streaming through to the 
secondary defense there is also often a chance to help a 
back who may have come through with his head down, and 
perhaps stumbling, by indicating which way to swerve, the 
man who has put out his secondary defensive player shout- 
ing "I've got him." As the call comes from right or left 
so will the runner go. It is perhaps a small matter, and 
not alwaj^s helpful, but men who are keen for victory omit 
no chance. 

Signals have accomplished a great deal in the way of in- 
dicating the predetermined positions of men, but it must be 
remembered that some of the most successful plays have 
gone through, though not exactly as planned, and their 
success has often been due to mutual helpfulness that comes 
of talking on the field. Unless an opening is clean the back 
is apt to come through " blinded" and unable to get his 
bearings on his own hook. He can be turned in the right 
direction sometimes by the work of helpful men in front of 
him. 

Healthy rivalries lead to a talking team as much as any- 
thing else, and keen competition between the ends, the 
tackles and the guards, even of the team as finally chosen, 
is always to be encouraged. Mutual criticism has quite 
as important a place as mutual encouragement. The backs 
should be taught to be jealous of their rights, to keep the 
forwards up to their work; and the line, too, should learn 
to demand the utmost excellence of the backs. 

It is a common experience in the course of the preliminary 
season to find the backs at top notch and the line working 
poorly, or vice versa. There are days when the secondary 
defense will be compelled to do practically all the tackling, 
and on such occasions the backs should "call" the forwards 



144 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

on every piece of poor work. Should the line be opened up 
and the runner come through to the secondary in his full 
stride it will keep the forward up to his work if the defensive 
back will yell " That's on you, Bill," indicating the offender 
so that the rest of the team and even the supporters in the 
stand can see where the trouble ljes. On the other hand, 
should the backs be sluggish and the line up to the mark, 
it will do no harm for the forward to call the back to task, 
saying, perhaps, " We had a hole for you. Where were you? 
When we make a boulevard like that you want to get started 
and get there." This sort of thing sounds harsh in cold 
type, perhaps, but it must be remembered that these men 
are working together, and working earnestly, and should not 
be blind to each others' faults any more than to their own. 

I am no advocate of the actual slugging indulged in by 
some coaches, or the "booting" common to some teams. 
As a rule, a good hard slap on the back, with a few sharp 
words, will prove a real aid to the erring forward. In the 
case of the Captain praise should be mingled with blame, 
even when in action, and if he is a real leader his voice will 
be heard at all times. So long as the talking is confined 
to the business in hand and is not designed to annoy the 
opposing eleven, it will always prove, I think, a valuable 
asset to any eleven. Mere noise is of no value, and the 
team must always remember that when the opposing eleven 
is on the attack and the quarter giving the signals sports- 
manship dictates silence so far as that is possible. In the 
case of a shift, requiring a shift in the defense, the talk 
of the defending players should be in low tones. Much 
of the defense is run by signals nowadays. Especially was 
this the case with the splendid Harvard eleven of 1912, but 
the signals were given in a low voice, by Parmenter, the 
Harvard centre, and all other talking of defense was con- 
fined to such times as the opposing quarter was not calling 
the series of numbers to his own team. 




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ADVANCED TEAM PLAY 145 

One more feature of talking on defense before passing to 
a consideration of signal systems. Every man on the de- 
fense should be constantly on the watch for the slightest 
indication on the part of the attacking team as to the direc- 
tion of the play. Time and again when complaint has been 
made by a quarterback or team captain that the opposing 
eleven knew the signals the fact has been that the quarter 
or captain or others in the play themselves gave away, not 
the signal, but the direction and probable nature of the 
attack. To attempt to master an opposing eleven's sig- 
nals is sheer waste of time, but to master the style of play 
and to discover peculiarities of individuals that are likely 
to give the play away is well worth while. When these 
little peculiarities are discovered by one of the backs he 
should at once apprise the rest of the team, or if there is 
not time for that, at least shout out the side of the line on 
which he expects the play to come. The same is true of 
the kick and pass. 

I should say nothing at all in a work intended for sports- 
men only about stealing an opponents signals were it not- 
for the fact that I want to emphasizet the utter worthless 
ness of it. I know of a specific case in which the coach 
gave the signals of the opposing eleven to his own team just 
before the game. He had stolen them, or rather, they had 
been stolen for him. His team won the game, but the play- 
ers forgot all about the stolen signals two minutes after 
the game started. Their own alertness was better than 
any amount of knowledge of the opposing eleven's code. 

Now to a study of signal systems. I shall not attempt 
to go into their history beyond stating that they started 
with simple phrases, went through algebra and geometry, 
were occasionally picturesque, as for instance the old 
" Clear ship for action/' of the Navy, and finally set- 
tled down once more to simple arithmetic. Some of the 

older systems were of the most complicated nature, and I 
10 



146 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

regret to find that there has been a tendency along that 
line in recent years. It is a tendency which if pace is to be 
maintained cannot endure. 

It is a football axiom, I believe, or should be, that the 
simplest signal system is the best. One of the old-fashioned 
methods was to number every man on the team and every 
opening in the line, and this is still useful in the early season, 
when a host of candidates is being tried out, and there must 
be a common system that can be learned in five minutes or 
so. In such a system the actual signaling may be begun on 
the first, second, third, fourth, or in fact any number pre- 
viously agreed upon. Thus a shift is easily made to mark 
the difference between the set used by the first eleven and 
that employed by the second. In these practice scrimmages 
there will be little attempt to fathom the signals of the oppos- 
ing team, for the players know that the coaches are not 
impressed with proficiency in that line but are looking for 
real football players. This simple system may be carried 
along until the first eleven is about chosen and the plays 
that are to be used in the more important games are being 
taught. When this stage is reached the signal system be- 
comes a matter of considerable moment, for it sometimes 
happens that the system chosen will have something to do 
with the winning or losing of the big game. One of the 
big Eastern elevens of 1912 owed its failure in part to a 
signal system that would have proved troublesome in the 
class room, let alone on the field. This system required 
several processes of thought, and I am not certain that it 
did not actually include multiplication. Subtraction is 
bad enough, but the multiplication table has no business 
in football. 

The simplest possible signal system that I have been 
able to discover is one that includes a key number, a play 
number, and a starting signal. The last I shall discuss 
separately, for it is one of the advanced features of football 



ADVANCED TEAM PLAY 147 

signaling. The key number being movable, the players 
who are waiting for it have nothing to do in the way of tak- 
ing one digit from one number, another from a second, and 
so on, before the key number is given, and have the further 
advantage of knowing, under the simplest method that 
has come to my notice, that should the number be above 
nine, only the last digit need be heeded. In the system to 
which I refer, the key number is any number ending in 5 
or 0. Thus 20, 15, 5, 75, 90, are all key numbers. Then 
follows immediately the number designating the play, after 
which the few numbers given may end in 5 or without re- 
quiring any attention. Under this system, of course, the 
play number itself may end in 5 or 0. Thus, if the play 
number be 25, the signal may be, 32, 16, 35, 25, 27, 45, 18. 
The key number is 35, immediately followed by the play 
number, 25. The rest may be disregarded as they mean 
nothing and are used only to conceal the exact instant of 
the snapping of the ball. 

The key number, of course, may be the first, second, third, 
or any other numbering ending in 5 or 0. The play num- 
bers should be odd or even, I think, according as the play 
is to go to the left or to the right. Most men naturally 
associate even numbers with the right side, and odd num- 
bers with the left. With such a system I am sure the 
coach will experience little difficulty. 

But some, even of the biggest teams, require much more 
brainwork of their men. They will arrive at the signal 
number, for instance, by combining the first digit of the 
second number with the second digit of the third number. 
Thus, if the play number is 31, the signal will run, 26, 38, 
21, etc. Again, in using the forward pass and placing kicks, 
there will be a number to indicate the spot to which the kick 
or pass is to be made. Even in such circumstances I be- 
lieve the simplest method is to have one number for each 
play. It is easier to learn a set of numbers arbitrarily, and 



148 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

become accustomed to recognizing them at once, than to do 
mental arithmetic under fire. Simplification of the signal 
system is another reason why it is a good plan for every 
member of the team to be familiar with the entire scheme 
of generalship. The tackle, for instance, will know, when 
he reaches a certain part of the field on a certain down, with 
a certain number of yards to gain, that the selection of 
plays will be greatly restricted. He will himself pick one 
or two out mentally, and will frequently hit upon the 
right one. He will catch his signal practically without 
thinking about it, but being prepared for a choice from a 
small number of plays, a change of generalship will be at 
once apparent, he will know that the quarterback is taking 
a chance, and will make his own effort with all the more 
dash, in the hope of justifying his leader in his choice by 
making the play go. 

One of the commonest methods of arriving at the play 
number is to add the first two numbers or the second and 
third numbers. For instance, in the first case, if the play 
number is 22, the signal will run, 5, 17, etc. In the second 
case it will run, 13, 18, 4, etc. This is easy enough when a 
man is seated in an easy chair, but it is apt to be trouble- 
some in the heat of a game. No signal system, I believe, 
should require a man actually to think. With every play 
numbered and a key number used, the prompt response to 
signals becomes a matter of habit. 

Just how thoroughly rooted in a man's inner consciousness 
a signal system may become, was well illustrated in the 
course of one of Yale's games in the season of 1912. One 
of the Eli players had been temporarily knocked out, had 
resumed play, and seemed to be getting along well enough 
so far as the spectators could see. Captain Spalding had 
his suspicions, however, and stopped the game, calling 
Johnny Mack, the trainer, to inspect the injured player. 
First Spalding put a long string of signals in rapid succes- 



ADVANCED TEAM PLAY 149 

sion to his player and the latter answered all of them 
promptly and accurately. "Let me afc him," said Mack. 
"Now," asked the trainer, "How many goal posts are 
there?' "Sixteen," was the prompt answer. "How many 
grandstands do you figure there are?" was the next query. 
"Twenty-five," answered the injured one. "That's all," 
quoth Mack, "Good night; the side line for yours." The 
injured player was still straight on his signals, although 
mentally a blank on anything else. 

Most elevens of the first rank use the starting signal, 
which is a great advantage when it works, and a severe 
handicap when it does not work. This signal enables the 
entire eleven to get just the slightest fraction of an advan- 
tage over the defense on the charge. The defensive players 
cannot make their charge until the ball is actually snapped, 
whereas, with the starting signal in use, the attacking 
forwards can start actually with the ball. Both players 
and ball go from the signal. As in all other signals there is 
a variety of methods in the use of the starting signal. Once 
again, however, tendencies toward complication should be 
avoided. The simplest starting signal I know of, and one 
that has been used by successful elevens of the first rank, is 
the repetition of the play number, or of some number the 
second digit of which is the second digit of the play number. 
Thus, using the system I outlined above, let us say that 
the play number is 28. The signal will then run, 4, 32, 15, 
28, 66, 14, 48. The third number is the key number, the 
fourth the play number, and the last the starting signal, 
which repeats in its second digit the second digit of the 
play number. Another method is to start on the fourth, 
fifth or some other number in the signal sequence. This 
means, however, that there will always be the same number 
of numbers in the signal sequence down to the instant of the 
charge, and in such case the starting signal will be as valu- 
able to the defense as it is to the offense. 



150 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

On nearly every eleven in the country the signals are 
given by the quarterback, but it sometimes happens that 
a very green and uncertain quarter has to be used, and a 
responsible veteran in the backfield is chosen to give the 
numbers. This is a poor makeshift as a rule, and has 
sometimes led to disaster because the man who gave the 
signals was out of his element simply through lack of prac- 
tice, no matter how well he knew the game, and no matter 
how good a general. 

It would seem hardly necessary to state that the captain 
should be extremely slow to change the signal of his quarter- 
back. Such a proceeding a few times does no harm, but 
when persisted in it absolutely ruins a team. One of 
Harvard's greatest teams a few years ago was reduced in 
efficiency fully fifty per cent, because of this very thing. 
Either the captain should have abandoned the policy of 
changing the signal or a substitute quarter should have 
been sent in. Better a fair individual player, who can run 
the team, than an individual star who has to consult with 
his captain or whom his captain deems it necessary to 
override. The final word, then, is simplicity, with the 
burden of running the team and calling the signals constantly 
on the shoulders of one man. 



CHAPTER X 

THE FIELD AND ITS ZONES OF PLAY — SHIFTS AND THE SLIDING 

DEFENSE AGAINST THEM — THE KICKING GAME THE 

FORWARD PASS — GENERALSHIP 

Time was when the football field meant to the average 
eleven merely a battle ground on which to make more 
consecutive yards than its opponent, never releasing the 
ball to the adversary until it was evident that no further 
advance could be made with the running game, and then 
kicking the leather as far down the field as possible. Each 
team began to run the ball as soon as in possession and with- 
out regard to the position on the field in which the team 
found itself. Kicking on first down was almost unheard of, 
and was resorted to only when the opposing eleven was 
fumbling badly or when there was half a gale behind the 
kicker. Happily all that is changed and to-day there are as 
many strategic positions on the field as if it were not flat 
but abounded in advantages of conformation. 

In the diagram (Fig. 1) the field is shown with two teams 
about to start the game, the Black team kicking off, the 
White team receiving. The White team has chosen the 
goal favored by the wind, and as soon as the kick-off is 
received will therefore be considered the attacking eleven. 
The " zones" indicated in the diagram are laid out from the 
viewpoint of the White captain, who (presuming that in 
this case he has a really strong wind at his back) will use a 
fairly liberal form of generalship in the endeavor to score 
as fast as possible and hold this advantage in the second 
and third periods, starting the attack once more in the last 

151 



152 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 



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period. If the White team can get in a long run-back on 
the kickoff the eleven will be in position to begin the run- 
ning attack almost at once, but should the run-back be short, 
it would be an obvious waste to use up time in the running 
game, when any exchange of kicks is bound to be to the 
heavy disadvantage of the Black eleven. Once up to his 
own forty-yard line the White captain may safely use the 
ball as indicated by the "zone of attack" in the diagram, 
with such modifications as are suggested in the fuller con- 
sideration of generalship at the close of this chapter. 

The positions of the White team follow the custom of 
most elevens in recent years in forming to receive the kickoff. 
The men are excellently situated for the purpose of con- 
verging on the man with the ball in order to get a flying 
interference under way before the members of the opposing 
team can get far down the field. The Black team is ar- 
ranged with three men back of the ball so that the White 
eleven will not know which man is to kick it and in which 
direction it is likely to go. It is well for the team kicking 
off to send the ball as high as possible to allow the men 
time in which to get down the field, and as a rule to get it 
into the corner of the field so that the side line will act as a 
protection against a run-back on one side. The exception 
to this side kick is when the strongest running half of the 
opposing eleven is in one of these corners. The ball should 
go, if possible, to the weakest man. The high kick into the 
corner is best when the receiving backs are of about even 
ability. Of course, in kicking off against a very strong 
wind the ball should be sent much lower, as hard as possible, 
and in the hope of getting it to bound before it reaches the 
receiving half. A fumbled kickoff, even though recovered, 
is a great boon to the team playing against the wind. 

So much for the kickoff. Let us turn now to the various 
advanced plays of recent years, the shifts, the kicking 
attack and the forward pass. The basic principle of both 



154 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

line and back shifts is to catch the defense in lateral motion 
at the instant the ball is snapped. A second principle is 
to bring two strong forwards together to make an opening 
no matter to which side of the center the play goes, and the 
third principle is to bring the stronger forwards into action 
with greater frequency than the weaker. When the first and 
second principles are followed the result is a " lopsided " line 
{i.e., more men on one side of the center than the other), 
while when following the third principle only the result may 
be either a lop-sided line or a balanced formation — this 
last the formation that many good coaches still believe to 
be the strongest. Glenn Warner's shift of years ago con- 
sisted in simply having the line side-step to the right or 
left a certain number of places, and for some time it was very 
effective, for it spread the defense, a defense at that time 
loath to shift at all, and when so doing shifting slowly. 

That shift still has its uses, but the sensation of recent 
years has been the Minnesota shift, invented by Dr. H. L. 
Williams, head coach at the University of Minnesota. The 
old shift was what might be called a one-position shift, since 
the men moved from their regular station to another and 
then started with the snap of the ball. The Minnesota 
play may be called a two-position shift in that it requires 
the men in it to take two positions other than their regular 
stations before the ball is snapped. Hence the common 
term, "jump" shift, the men practically jumping from the 
first position into the second. Now while the old shift 
settled the nature of the line at once, the new shift keeps 
the nature of the line in doubt to the defense until almost 
the instant of the snapping of the ball. Whereas the old 
shift meant a move at once on the part of the defensive line 
right or left, the new shift makes it impossible for the 
defensive line to shift until almost the instant of the snap- 
ping of the ball. Further, the defensive line cannot tell 
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ZONES OF PLAY— GENERALSHIP 155 

Thus the Minnesota, or jump shift, has the added advantage 
of a double lateral threat. 

The original Minnesota method is shown in the diagram 
(Fig. 2), the tackles in this case remaining on the line and the 
guards dropping into the second, or middle rank of the 
formation. Sometimes the guards are left on the line and 
the tackles dropped back in this first position. This for 
variety and to alternate the heavy work of leading the shift 
at the snap of the ball. When the shift was taken to Yale 
late in the season only the two tackles were brought back. 
Other teams that took up the shift dropped back only the 
two guards, while still others occasionally dropped back the 
entire line. Yale continued the shift another season, 
dropping back the two tackles and using a guard in the 
interference, while when Princeton took up the Minnesota 
method the Tigers came closer to the original formation. 

The second position of the Minnesota is shown in the 
diagram (Fig. 3) with only one man on one side of centre 
and five on the other side, in this case with the two guards 
" paired." One of the great difficulties of the shift is to 
time the second position and the snap of the ball accurately, 
to vary the intervals between the two for the further 
bewilderment of. the defense, and a third difficulty is to get 
the backs to find their places with sufficient dispatch. The 
Minnesota shift slowly made is practically useless, but 
accurately timed is still a potent factor in football. If in 
the course of the shift one of the backs remains five yards 
behind the line there is always the threat of a forward pass, 
and, by accurate timing, it is easy to swing the second 
position of the maneuver into a regular kick formation 
behind a lop-sided line. 

Now the natural tendency of the defensive player in the 
old days was to follow his man around in the course of a shift 
in the line, the end sometimes swinging clear around to the 
other side. Against the shift it is obvious that this will not 



156 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

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ZONES OF PLAY— GENERALSHIP 157 

do, for the shift can be jumped against the unprotected side, 
or against the newly arranged side, the defense being unable 
to run around as fast as the opponents can jump. The 
principle of the shift, therefore, must be met by as sound a 
principle of defense. This principle is that the defense can 
"slide" faster than the attack can side-step (as in the old 
shift), not, like the attack, being obliged to have a man 
come over the ball in order to pass it, and can slide quite a 
little faster than the attack can jump. In the diagrams 
(Figs. 2 and 3) the two positions of the defensive line are 
shown — in the first its normal position, and in the second 
its position after the slide has been made. The attack, 
jumping to the right, finds itself facing a line that has slid 
to the left, and that, having been able to move faster a 
shorter distance is not in motion. The positions of the 
two lines, therefore, are about as they would be in normal 
formation — but not quite, since the presumably two strong- 
est forwards of the attack are brought against the non- 
reinforced side of the defensive line. 

It has been shown that because of the neutral zone (the 
length of the ball) between the two lines the defensive for- 
wards have a slight advantage, and this is just enough in 
many cases to offset the advantage gained for the attack in 
pairing two strong men against a non-reinforced side of the 
defensive line. Experience has shown that in evenly 
matched teams, on which every line man is doing his duty 
on defense, the Minnesota shift can generally be stopped 
short of a first down, but a perfectly executed shift will 
work against a defensive line that has one weak spot or is 
in the least degree sluggish. Tacticians have been working 
for some time on a plan of defense against the shift that will 
retain the slide principle at full value and at the same time 
permit of a reinforced line on the side where the attacking 
line has been reinforced. It is a fascinating problem. 
Before passing to variations of this jump shift I might add 



158 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

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ZONES OF PLAY— GENERALSHIP 159 

that of course the defensive backs slide with the sliding line, 
so that their second position combined with the second 
position of the line results in what I have called the normal, 
or standard defense. 

One of the most interesting variations of the shift, and 
much more alarming to the partisan in the stand than the 
well coached team in the field, is shown in the diagrams 
(Figs. 4 and 5). It has been called the " Idaho Divide," 
but its principle is much the same as that of the Minnesota, 
and I consider the Minnesota more effective. Dartmouth 
used the formation against Princeton in 1912, but made 
much more headway with the old-fashioned formations. 
The two positions of the shift and the two positions of the 
sliding line are shown in the diagrams. 

The " Wheel, " used with considerable success by Harvard, 
is one of the most interesting forms of the shift. It can be 
used to bring about a lop-sided line or a balanced line, the 
two sides simply changing positions as shown in the diagram 
(Fig. 6). When first used this shift was rather bewildering 
to the defense, since one set of men swung around behind 
centre, the other set through the neutral zone, with some- 
what the effect of a pinwheel. This passing through the 
neutral zone at first thoroughly upset the defense. Later 
the centre was obliged by the referee to step back and allow 
one side of the pinwheel to pass in front of him but not in 
front of the ball. This robbed the shift of considerable of 
its bewilderment, but it is still useful upon occasion for 
changing the positions of the forwards, although many 
coaches believe the men might as well take up their new 
positions when the teams line up. 

Against this shift the defensive line has to remember 
merely to stand fast, save when it results in a lop-sided 
formation, in which case the defensive line simply slides as 
against the other shifts. Against a team that has never 
seen it the wheel shift ought still to be effective, retaining 



160 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

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its quality of temporary bewilderment. One of its serious 
defects, not found in the other shifts, is that a clever de- 
fensive line may by fast work reinforce one side of the line 
or the other against the shift, taking care, however, not 
to be caught in motion at the snap of the ball. 

A very simple and very effective line and back shift is 
shown in the diagram (Fig. 7). It results in a lop-sided line 
with a tandem of the backs behind the reinforced side. In 
this form of the shift the backs experience little difficulty in 
finding their new positions, and the play can be made to 
go very fast. It has been used with effect by the Navy, 
which in recent years has had players who were both 
powerful and speedy. 

In recent years punting has reached a higher degree of 
efficiency as a factor in the actual attack than ever before, 
and a team that can boast of a strong punter, backed up 
by a drop and placement kicker, need not hesitate to 
tackle the best elevens provided the ends are fast and the 
defense strong, as was the case at Princeton the last time 
Princeton defeated both Harvard and Yale without the 
semblance of a running attack. Indeed, kicking as used 
strictly in the sense of attack has usually reached a higher 
state of efficiency at Princeton than anywhere else in the 
East, or the West either, for that matter. A team equipped 
as described at the beginning of this paragraph might well 
follow the use of the zones mapped out in the diagram (Fig. 
8), which is markedly different from the zone arrangement 
in the diagram (Fig. 1). The diagram (Fig. 8) shows the 
team with the wind at its back. The "zone of kicking 
defense" in the diagram might even stop at the center of 
the field, had the team a kicker like Brickley of Harvard, 
were it not for the fact that it is wise to allow more room 
for the recovery of the ball in case of a blocked kick. In 
the zone of kicking defense our team will kick on first 

down, or on second down if a cross-field change in the 
li 



162 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 







ZONES OF PLAY— GENERALSHIP 163 

position of the eleven be found necessary. If the punting 
duel is steadily maintained and our ends keep the enemy 
from running back the ball the team will eventually work 
past the center of the field, and there is always the chance 
that the enemy will fumble and our team recover the ball 
in his territory. 

The territory within which it may be considered safe to 
open fire on the crossbar and the uprights is indicated in 
the diagram by the term "field goal zone" while the short 
punting attack may well wait until within that part of the 
field labeled in the diagram "zone of kicking attack." It 
is well to keep up the distance punting clear to the center 
of the field, I think, saving the crossfire and down the side- 
line punting until the enemy's forty-yard line is reached, 
taking care at all times that the ball does not cross the 
goal line. 

Once on the forty-yard line and near the center of the field 
the punter should put the ball out of bounds just short of 
the ten-yard line. To drive it down closer might be risky, 
for were the leather to strike just inside and take a bound 
inward the wind might carry it across the goal line for a 
touchback, and the touchback is the one thing to be avoided 
since the defense may bring the ball out and kick. Kicking 
out of bounds in this way prevents a run-back, and gives 
the ball to the enemy in an awkward position. When near 
the side-line the good kicker should send his punt straight 
down the field, short, rather shorter perhaps than as shown 
in the diagram, so as to guard against a touchback. Such 
kicks are easy for the ends to cover and exceedingly difficult 
to face. There is every chance here of a picked-up fumble 
and a touchdown. From the thirty-yard line the use of 
zones shown in the diagram calls for a placement field goal 
from scrimmage. The placement at this distance is, I 
think, preferable to the drop-kick, for it leaves an extra 
man behind the line to aid in recovering the ball in case of a 



164 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

fumble. At the twenty-yard line the quick drop-kick is 
perhaps the better maneuver, for at this point the kicker 
can take plenty of room behind his line. When the team 
is on either of these lines and at the side of the field, 
the ball should be run out in front of the goal posts with no 
attempt to gain ground. 

This particular scheme of kicking attack is planned 
especially for teams that are defensively strong and have a 
fine kicker and no running game to speak of, but a modified 
form of it might be adopted even by an eleven that boasted 
of a strong running game. There are variations innumerable 
according to the ability of the various units of the team, 
bub the system diagrammed will serve as a basis on which to 
work. 

The whole success of the kicking game, these days, 
depends upon placing more than anything else, for the 
burden of the defense against an accurate punter is very 
heavy and means a palpable weakening of the defense 
against the running attack. A fairly safe defense against 
punting from the kick formation on any but the fourth down 
is shown in the diagram (Fig. 9). Since there is danger of a 
run from this formation the ends may well go in fast to 
hurry the kick or prevent a run, while the two backs in the 
second line of defense close in a little in order to cover 
more territory in case of a forward pass. They can well 
afford to draw in a little, for they are still within reach of 
the enemy's ends, and if the fullback tries a run from so 
far back of the line they will still have plenty of time to 
reach the line of scrimmage as they have less distance to 
travel than the fullback. This formation applies only 
when there is considerable territory left to gain for a first 
down, for if there is only a little to go the chances are that 
another than the fullback will be sent into the line to make 
the distance. The two backs who are to handle the kick 
should be all the way from twenty-five to thirty-five yards 



ZONES OF PLAY— GENERALSHIP 165 

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166 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

back of the line according to the ability of the kicker and 
the strength of the wind. It will be objected by some that 
the formation outlined is very dangerous, but against a 
strong punter who can place his kicks it is better to take the 
chance of a short gain or even of a forward pass, as a general 
rule, than to have a difficult kick go driving down the field 
many yards away from a solitary player in the backfield, 
as Yale and Princeton would have willingly admitted after 
facing the deadly punting of Felton of Harvard in the big 
games of 1912. 

The loosening or tightening of the formation depends 
upon the position of the kicking team on the field, the num- 
ber of the down, whether first, second or third, and the 
number of yards to be gained, and no amount of diagram- 
ming can supplant the use of brains on the field. 

When the kick formation is assumed on the fourth down, 
save when the defensive team is well down in its own terri- 
tory, a punt is almost certain to follow, and the whole aim 
of the defense is to run the ball back as many yards as 
possible. The diagram (Fig. 10) shows what is known as 
the "basket" or "nest" defense against this fourth down 
kicking. In this case the ends may be dropped back about 
five yards, the fullback may take plenty of room back of 
the line, and the three other backs should spread out all 
the way from twenty-five to thirty-five yards back, ready to 
cover the greatest possible amount of territory, and to 
assist each other by interference. When the opposing 
ends come down the field, the defensive ends do not try to 
check them at once, but turn and come down with them, 
turning them in if possible so that there will be a clear path 
up the side line. The fullback should also come down, 
turning in time to take care of the first line man down the 
field under the kick. The other two backs, once the ball 
is safely caught and there is no chance of a fumble, should 
put out of the play any men who have eluded the ends and 



ZONES OF PLAY— GENERALSHIP 167 



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168 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

the fullback, doing so without waiting for the catch should 
they be too close upon the catcher. If the downfield men 
are well put out of the play and there is plenty of time for 
the catch these two backs should make interference for their 
comrade, first calling to him the clearest path, that he may 
not be tempted to take his eyes off the ball before he has it 
firmly gripped. 

The arrangement of the men will depend of course upon 
their own personal range, the ability of the kicker, and the 
wind. In case the kicking team possesses a strong down- 
field line man who is a hard tackier, the fullback may well 
come up closer and make sure of getting so dangerous a man 
as he breaks clear of the line. 

Of course one of the strongest defenses against the kicking 
game is to block the kick, and the best opportunities occur 
when the enemy is kicking from well down in his own terri- 
tory. If he assumes the kick formation within twenty-five 
yards of his own goal line on first or second down it is a 
safe guess that the actual kick will be forthcoming, for to 
have his fullback thrown for a loss behind his own scrimmage 
line on an attempted run would prove a serious setback. 
There are many ways of attempting to block a kick, but 
any team that possesses a powerful pair of guards may well 
try the method used so successfully by Pennsylvania State 
College. In using this system, shown in the diagram (Fig. 2), 
the guards play closer to the center than usual and the other 
forwards close in a little. As the ball is snapped the ends 
go in fast and hard but make no attempt to reach the full- 
back. Their sole duty is to keep the protecting backs thor- 
oughly occupied, shooting across and spilling them if possible. 
The guards, acting together, pull the opposing centre 
forward on his face, while the tackles shoot across and pull 
down the guards, or at least pull them away from the 
opening made by their own guards. The center, who has 
the shortest distance to go to the kicker, jumps through the 




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opening and leaps in front of the kicker. It is a very effect- 
ive method when well executed, but it needs strong men. 
No attention is paid to the ends going down the field in 
this play, save that there are two men in the back field to 
handle the kick should it not be blocked. 

The forward pass is perhaps the most rabidly discussed 
play in football to-day and there are hardly two first-class 
coaches in the country who take exactly the same view of 
its use. In some cases it has been used too often, and in 

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others too seldom. It has won games for the team using 
it, and has cost games for the same team. "It is a boom- 
erang," says one coach; "it is a play with a kick in it/' 
declares another. 

Now the forward pass is quite as valuable as a threat as 
an actual play and it was more because of the chance that 
the threat of it would spread the defense than because it 



170 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

would work wonders as an actual play that the Rules 
Committee adopted it. In its first year very little use of it 
as a threat was made, and there was much grumbling 
because the play itself seemed so uncertain and was so often 
intercepted for long gains by the defense. Any time a back- 
field lines up with one man five yards or more behind the 
line of scrimmage the defense is menaced with a forward 
pass. Even if the pass is not forthcoming the menace must 
be reckoned with and there must be an opening out of the 
defense. It is its judicious use as play and threat both that 
marks the wise coach. 

Perhaps the best criticism of it as an actual play was the 
danger to the team making it, for as kicks may be run back 
so may forward passes, and since the men sent down under 
the pass will be engaged in seeking to snatch the ball, rather 
than in watching the defensive backs, they will hardly be 
in advantageous position to bring down the interceptor of 
the pass, and there should be a great chance for a fast, 
alert, dodging back on the defense against the advance 
fling. With a quick getaway from the forward pass "eli- 
gibles," usually four in number, he will have to thread his 
way through a well-broken field of only seven men. His 
principal trouble should be in the form of the tackles, for 
they will come storming down the field for the very purpose 
of nailing the defensive back, albeit a man or two of the at- 
tack will have to be left well back up the field to guard against 
accidents. Of course an intercepted long pass is hardly as 
dangerous as an intercepted short pass, but there is danger 
in it just the same. 

- The long pass has the advantage that it need not neces- 
sarily be hurled very far to one side, and the players will 
be pretty well spread, whereas the short pass often goes 
sharply to the side and is, therefore, a trifle risky in the face 
of fast defensive backs. On the other hand, the short pass 
can be shot almost on a flat trajectory to its recipient, 



ZONES OF PLAY— GENERALSHIP 171 

whereas the long pass often has to be flung rather high, 
to some prearranged spot, ball and man arriving almost 
simultaneously. 

Coaches differ as to where the line should be drawn 
between passing direct to the man and to some unoccupied 
spot, and as there are many minds there have been many 
plays in the past and will be many in the future to test the 
various theories. There is no denying the value of the play 
in attacking territory, no denying its possible value as a 
scoring play, yet for all that the forward pass zone behind 
the goal line was added in the rule-making less in the hope 
that the attacking team would make a touchdown with the 
play than in the hope that the threat of it would so spread 
the defense that the attack would have at least an even 
chance of crossing the line with the running game as a climax 
to a steady, well-planned and well-executed advance, ball 
in hand. 

The elements of the forward pass are three — deception, 
delay, protection. It is obvious that no team making the 
pass wants the opposing eleven to know when it is coming. 
To this end it may be made from a variety of formations 
and threatened as well as actually made from regular 
formations which just before the ball is snapped do not 
have one man five yards back of the line of scrimmage. A 
player may one time run back as if to make the play and 
not make it; another time run back and actually make it. 
Again, the threat of it — that is with one man five yards 
back as the teams line up — should be cleverly mixed up 
with the actual play made from the threatening position. 
The pass should sometimes be made from the kick formation, 
and indeed, the fear of it should be in the hearts of the enemy 
most of the time. It might be objected that the enemy 
always being on the watch, the play would fail both as a 
threat and as an actual ground-gainer. This argument 
fails because of the fact that the defense must face other 



172 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

Fi !lMPiE SHORT TOWARD PASS 



PASS 
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ZONES OF PLAY— GENERALSHIP 173 

plays and handle them and so be out of shape to handle the 
pass. The deception may be made even when men are 
going down the field ostensibly to take the pass, and the 
rest of the team well in motion, by the simple process of the 
back continuing his run. 

The second element, delay, is the most difficult. Various 
subterfuges have to be resorted to behind the line to give 
time for as many eligible men as possible to get down the 
field. In the case of a short pass less delay is needed, but 
even here it is valuable, for if the passer has the maximum 
number of human targets at which to shoot, he will the more 
quickly find one of them uncovered by the defense, for the 
defense cannot possibly cover five men. Four men will 
make serious trouble for the defense, and in the case of very 
short passing I have seen the play work when the passer 
had only one eligible to whom to hurl. In the accom- 
panying diagrams (Figs. 12, 13 and 14) I have shown three 
examples both of deception and delay. 

The third element, protection, is not so difficult as the 
other two, for a back may protect the passer as he does a 
kicker and then go down the field to cover the pass in case 
it is intercepted. In the diagram (Fig. 12) the protector is 
a line man. In the diagram (Fig. 13) there are two protect- 
ors, a line man and a back, while in the diagram (Fig. 14) 
the protection is afforded by the fact that the ball crosses 
the line of forwards, the " receiver" No. 7, at the right of 
the diagram, being only a bluff to draw the defense while 
the real receiver is found in No. 6. 

I should not advise school elevens to try to use a line 
man as a protector, for it takes a skilled and active forward 
to cover the ground and get out where he will be of service, 
and even some of the big teams cannot use a line man as a 
protector. I have used line men as protectors in the 
forward passes shown in the diagrams because there have 



174 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

LONG TOBMAKD PASS 

(FROM KICK FORMATION) 



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ZONES OF PLAY— GENERALSHIP 175 

been many cases of their successful use, and I expect to 
see this feature of the play still further developed. 

In the diagram (Fig. 12) is shown a sample of a short 
forward pass with the maximum number of receivers down 
the field. The play is made from the square formation of 
the backs. Since one man may be in motion toward his 
own goal line before the ball is snapped, No. 11 takes a 
flying start and turns to his left, receiving the pass on the 
run. He continues the run a short distance, careful always 
to be five yards behind the line of scrimmage, and then turns 
to locate his receivers. He is covered by the tackle, No. 5, 
who crosses from his position. Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 go 
down the field with the snap of the ball, following the 
courses indicated in the diagram. The pass is made to the 
man in the best position to receive it. The run should have 
pulled the defense to the left, but since there is no protector 
to cover No. 9 the pass should never be made to him unless 
the nearest man of the defense has been drawn many yards 
away from him. If, however, the pass goes to No. 7, an 
interception thereof may be covered by No. 9. The play 
will have to be fast, for the distances are short. 

A fair sample of the long pass is shown in the diagram 
(Fig. 13). In this the kick formation is assumed, but the 
centre instead of passing for the kick passes to No. 11 who 
holds the ball long enough to draw in the defensive end 
and then tosses it to No. 10, who makes the second delay by 
a run to the right, Nos. 11 and 5 crossing over as protectors. 
Nos. 6, 7, 8 and 9 go down the field with the snap of the 
ball, following the courses indicated in the diagram. When 
No. 10 sees his men in position he sends the ball away to 
the man who seems to have the best chance of receiving it. 
The defense should find considerable difficulty in covering 
the four men. The pass from this formation is easily varied 
by a run from time to time. 

In the diagram (Fig. 14) is shown a forward pass that 



176 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 
Fig. 14 

CHOICE of END RUN or PASS 



PASS 



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ZONES OF PLAY— GENERALSHIP 177 

may be turned into an end run. In this case, as explained 
above, no protector is necessary. The center makes a 
direct pass to No. 10, and Nos. 8, 9 and 10 start for the 
right as indicated by the arrows. At the snap of the ball 
Nos. 6 and 7 go down the field, taking the courses indicated 
in the diagram. No. 11 drops back as the run is started so 
as to be five yards behind the line of scrimmage and receives 
the ball from No. 10 as the latter goes past. The run is 
continued until it is apparent whether the secondary defense 
will be drawn up or will stay back. If it stays back the 
play is turned into an end run, whereas if it comes up the 
pass is made to No. 6. 

These three plays are slight variations of others that 
have been in actual and successful use, and serve to illus- 
trate, I think, the three principles of the pass. One of 
Harvard's passes in which the ball is thrown to the spot 
where the runner is to arrive is illustrated elsewhere in an 
actual photograph. 

One last caution. The pass was never intended as a 
short cut to victory, but as a sound football play to be care- 
fully worked up in conjunction with the rest of the attack. 

In returning to the subject of generalship I cannot begin 
better than by asking the reader to compare the two full 
field diagrams already given (Figs. 1 and 8), especially in 
the matter of the zones. In the first of these the zones are 
laid out for a team supposed to have a powerful and versatile 
running attack, in the second the arrangement presupposes 
that the team is very strong in kicking and has practically 
no attack ball in hand. If these two arrangements of zones 
are sound, then some combination of the two will give a 
reasonable plan of generalship to the team that is of all- 
round calibre. If the team be a shade the stronger in kick- 
ing, then that is the point that will be emphasized, and if 
just a little overbalanced in running then it is upon that 
form of attack that the emphasis will be laid. One thing 

12 



178 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

must never be forgotten, however, and that is that it is far 
better to kick too much than run too much. 

So far in this study of generalship it will be noticed that 
I have always spoken of the team as having the wind behind 
it. This is for the simple reason that there is nothing for 
the team against the wind to do but use the running game 
for three downs even on its own side of the field, and kick 
low and hard and out of bounds on the fourth, with an 
occasional and carefully covered forward pass. Such a 
team must run its plays slowly, playing for time, and mak- 
ing as little exertion as possible so as to be fresh when its 
turn comes with the wind. There is this variation, however, 
that should a misplay by the enemy give such an eleven 
possession of the ball within reasonable striking distance 
the full strength of the running and passing games should 
be turned on in the effort to score, for the team that can 
score against the wind is quite likely to get the whip hand. 
Furthermore, the most powerful backs, who hitherto have 
been kept waiting on the side lines should be thrown into 
the game to seize their chance, the desultory and time- 
saving running game having been carried on by the second 
string backs who will not be used when the real running 
attack is turned loose. 

Now if there is no wind at all, both teams, I think, should 
play about as they would if each had a mild wind behind it. 
This would mean that both sides would use the same fun- 
damental generalship and the cleverest plays executed by 
the cleverest men would probably carry the day. The 
choice of these particular plays and their execution would 
show up above the broad base of the generalship that does 
not make mistakes. 

Perhaps the best way to reach the combination idea of 
kicking and running under the modern form of generalship, 
is to lay out for a hypothetical team a chart somewhat on 
the style of that shown in the diagram (Fig. 15). For 



ZONES OF PLAY— GENERALSHIP 



179 



WINDWARD ZONE 



LEEWARD ZONE 






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180 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

purposes of illustration and elucidation it is considered 
that our team has the wind and is receiving the kickoff, 
and that the wind is blowing diagonally down the field as 
indicated by the arrow in the diagram. Should the wind 
be straight down the field it means simply that we shall be 
saved the down that is required now and then in order to 
get to windward. Should the wind be blowing straight 
across the field it means that this windward down must 
carry us a greater lateral distance than would otherwise be 
necessary. So for the sake of illustration we are justified 
in assuming that the wind will be blowing about as indicated. 
The field is divided, then, straight down the middle, into 
windward and leeward zones, and every step we take, or 
nearly every one, down that field, will have to be taken 
with reference to our position in one or the other of these 
zones. One thing more before taking up the play — we 
must take for granted that we are facing a team that has no 
special weakness requiring special change in the generalship. 
Now to our game. If in receiving the kickoff we cannot 
run it back beyond the twenty-yard line we shall find our- 
selves in either the upper or the lower quadrangle at the ex- 
treme left of the diagram. Having the advantage of the wind 
our first thought is to get on across the middle line as quickly 
as possible and with the least expenditure of effort. Obvi- 
ously, then, we shall kick as high and as far as possible, the 
height being for the benefit of our ends whom we expect to 
hold the ground covered by the kick. If kicking from 
the upper quadrangle we shall do so on the first down that 
there may be no delay whatsoever. We do not want to 
run for another reason — because this is no situation in 
which to risk a fumble by passing the ball through the 
hands of three men. Further, we do not wish to give our 
opponent an idea of what sort of running plays we may 
have, lest he have them diagnosed when we get into his 
territory. 




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ZONES OF PLAY— GENERALSHIP 181 

If, however, we find ourselves starting from the lower 
quadrangle we shall have to run the ball on the first down in 
order to get into the upper or windward quadrangle whence 
we may kick with less fear of having the ball blown out of 
bounds. This run will have to be wide and of the simplest 
description. Obviously the simplest is that in which the 
quarterback carries the ball, the leather thus passing through 
only two hands, and reducing the chance of fumbling to a 
minimum. So we run into the upper quadrangle, taking 
no thought of gaining ground, and then follow the kicking 
instructions given for that quadrangle. I may be asked 
why we should not make a forward pass and so make a 
good gain without losing the ball. The answer is that the 
chances against us are very great. The pass might be 
spoiled, which would cost us one down, but above all it 
might be intercepted, which is not to be thought of, since 
that would mean practically handing the game to the 
enemy. 

Now should the reception of the kickofl find our team in 
the second of the upper quadrangles, or should we get 
there through an exchange of kicks, we may feel reasonably 
safe against fumbling, for the team has been in action and 
the nervousness is worn off. It may be, too, that the 
enemy, knowing we are playing the wind for all it is worth, 
will expect us to kick on first down. Let us then make our 
kick formation and shoot a man through a quick opening 
in the line and along the side line just to see if there is not a 
chance of a good-sized gain. Should a fumble ensue we 
have a man well back to retrieve it, and we are fairly safe. 
Again, we have wasted only one down and are still in the 
commanding windward position for kicking. So this time 
we kick on second down, not forgetting distance and 
height. 

If the reception of the kickoff finds us in the second 
lower quadrangle we shall be wise to get to windward at 



182 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

once, and to do so we shall use a simple end run, this time 
allowing the ball to pass through three hands, and not seek- 
ing to gain. We shall then kick on the second down as 
was the case when we found ourselves in the upper 
quadrangle. 

Now we come to the narrow little zone between our forty- 
yard line and the centre of the field. Let us presume that 
either through our run in the upper second quadrangle 
or through a further exchange of kicks, we find ourselves 
on our forty-yard line. We can now afford to do a little 
running, for we are getting near the zone of real attack, 
and a big advance at this stage will keep the ball for us and 
give us the chance to score that much sooner. From this 
upper third quadrangle, then, we can try what is known as 
the "long gainer/ ' a fairly wide run, cleverly devised, that 
if it gains at all will take us along ten yards or so. If we 
fail we can punch the line, say off or just inside the left 
tackle, and thus to windward, and make our kick on the 
third down. Of course, as I have said, if our attack is 
not much to brag of, we shall hold off our running game a 
little longer. 

If our "long gainer" is to be used in the lower third 
quadrangle we ought to get to windward with it. Then, 
if it is successful, it will give us a first down in a commanding 
position, and if unsuccessful will still put us in such a posi- 
tion that we can try the line on the second attempt in the 
hope of making a first down. On the third down we shall 
waste no more time, but get in another of our long kicks. 

Once over the center of the field we shall introduce a 
little more variety. Further, in exchanging punts we shall 
take care to make fair catches of our enemy's kicks unless 
the chance to run be most alluring. In the upper fourth 
quadrangle we might start with the kick threat and from 
it try a run. It is some time since we did that. If that 
fails our quarterback may try a line play if he finds that 



ZONES OF PLAY— GENERALSHIP 183 

the formation of the opposing defense invites it, or the long 
gainer again if in his judgment it has the better chance 
and will not carry us down into the lower quadrangle. The 
same general directions will govern our play from the 
lower fourth quadrant save that we ought to be sure to get 
to windward. 

Across the enemy's forty-yard line at last, we shall be able 
to add more variety to the running attack, and the game 
will pass still further from the direction of the coaches into 
the hands of the actual general on the field, the quarterback 
who is running the team. By this time he will have learned 
whatever weaknesses may exist in the enemy's defense and 
should be allowed to play to them according to his best 
judgment, save that his forward pass should not be made 
on fourth down. He may mix it up with the other plays, 
taking care to keep in the upper half of the field, with the 
exception that the forward pass may go into the lower half, 
for if successful the gain will offset that disadvantage, and 
if a failure he will be where he was before with no more than 
the loss of a down. The fourth down, however, should find 
him in position to try a field goal from placement. If 
playing in the lower fifth quadrangle the same procedure 
should be followed save that by the fourth down we 
should be far enough to windward to try a field goal from 
placement. 

When we gain the sixth quadrangle we should put forth 
our utmost efforts to score a touchdown, and to that end 
the quarterback will work, using his own best judgment in 
the choice of plays, holding practically nothing back, for it 
may be that we shall never again have the chance. If the 
running game takes us within the five-yard line with only 
one down left it is time to use the " brainstorm' ' or "scoring 
play," the play in devising which the coaches have put 
forth their best inventive efforts. If, however, we find 
ourselves with more than five yards to go for a touchdown 



184 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

the quarterback will have to make the choice perhaps of 
his football career. He may stake all on the best devised 
forward pass in our list of plays over the goal line, or make 
sure of the points to be gained by the drop-kick process. 
He will be praised or blamed according as the game turns 
out and no outside agency can possibly help him here. 

Such is a general plan of generalship that in the main I 
consider to be sound, for I have seen it successfully used, 
with only slight variations, again and again. It is offered 
here not by any means as a final plan, but merely as one 
that is sound enough on which to build and specialize. 
The actual plays I have suggested in the various quadrangles 
may be greatly varied, but it was impossible to make clear 
the general purpose of the plan without such suggestions.' 
A hundred or more of these charts might be made, all 
different, without violating the basic principle. And this 
basic principle of the generalship of to-day is no mere theory, 
but the result of years of progress on the gridiron. 

No matter what the plan of generalship used, here are 
three things that every team should remember: (1) With 
the wind play fast: against it play slowly. (2) Never use 
an original or high-class running play until in opponent's 
territory. The only exception is when beaten and there 
is only a minute or so left to play. (3) When tackled close 
to the sideline get some part of the body out of bounds so 
that the ball may be carried in. 



CHAPTER XI 

COACHING FOR THE SPECTATOR — HOW TO FOLLOW THE 

MODERN GAME 

So often has it been charged that American college foot- 
ball was a dull and profitless game for the spectator that the 
rule makers have sought constantly in recent years to open 
up the play so that there would be a better chance to 
follow the ball. At the same time the attempt has been 
made to bring out more sharply the work of individuals, so 
that it might be better appreciated by those ignorant of 
the technique of the game. In the old days the man in the 
stand saw little more than two struggling masses, pushing 
up and down the field. The object was sufficiently ap- 
parent, but not the method of its attainment. 

After the radical changes in the laws of the game, however, 
the play swung swiftly to the other extreme, so that the 
spectator saw so much of the ball that he had little time or 
opportunity to watch anything else. The result was that 
while one object of the Committee, the opening of the play, 
was attained, the other, the bringing out of the work of 
those individuals who had little or no chance to handle the 
ball, failed of accomplishment to a large extent. 

Again, while the old game was comparatively simple — 
concerned as it was almost entirely with masses — the coaches 
found so much opportunity in the new style for the bewilder- 
ment of the opposing eleven that they were soon able to 
bewilder the spectator as well, and along a new line. They 
introduced shifts of all sorts, both in the line and in the back- 
field, and the one great advantage of the old game — the 

185 



186 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

fact that in the line at least the same men faced each other 
practically from whistle to whistle — was lost. 

The rules, too, have gradually become so intricate that 
even many good players are not thoroughly versed in them, 
and the general public seldom reads them. There remains 
then nothing for the spectator but to get some friend to 
teach him as much of the game as can be done in a half- 
hour session or so, and trust to his own good sense to acquire 
the rest. The man who is able to attend only one big 
game a year may well be excused for failure to make any 
deep scrutiny into a form of sport that often puzzles its 
closest students, but there is less to be said for the enthusiast 
who is able to attend an early season game or two. The 
attempt will be made here to give the average spectator 
enough of an insight into the game as he will witness it on 
the November day that occupies a prominent place in his 
date book to induce him to go on with a most fascinating 
study on his own account. 

To the man who gets out to a game or two in the early 
fall I would suggest in the first place that he select a better 
seat than seems to have been his custom. I have seen a 
crowd of two or three thousand jam down into the front 
rows of the Harvard Stadium, in the early fall, although there 
was plenty of room at the top. The higher up one is, within 
reason, the better view of football will he get. Near the 
center of the field, and well toward the top of the stand, if 
not actually in the top row, is the choice position. From 
this post one gets an excellent idea of the work of the teams 
with relation to their positions in one part of the field or 
another, and an idea of how the generalship varies with 
the change in position. Again, in looking almost directly 
down on the elevens the body of one man is not hidden by 
that of two or three others, and there is a far better oppor- 
tunity for accurate judgment of the merits of the individuals 
on the field. 




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FOR THE SPECTATOR 187 

This high position in the stand with its consequent 
almost bird's-eye view of the field is generally sought by 
the team scouts as well as by certain of the coaches. If a 
coach could have the opportunity to make his observations 
from this point instead of from the side line in the course 
of an important game he would be happy indeed. Happily 
there is no means of communicating with the field, and 
the team therefore has to work out its own salvation without 
the aid of expert advice from the "crow's nest." It is one 
situation in which the spectator has the advantage of the 
coach to a large degree. Not alone does the running game 
stand out in stronger relief, but the course of the kicking is 
easily followed, and the various formations for the protec- 
tion of the punter and the back receiving the ball are like 
an open book. 

The single disadvantage of this situation lies in the fact 
that the openings in the line and the manner in which the 
runner takes them are not so clearly apparent, and for this 
reason it would be wise to watch one of the early season 
games from the end stand, albeit in a lofty position. From 
such a post the way in which the defensive backs come up 
to re-inforce the line, the width of the openings, and the 
judging of kicks can be gauged better than from the side, 
while in the event of a steady march down the field in the 
direction of the spectator the latter will experience a deeper 
thrill — more solid enjoyment than would be the case were 
he sitting in the side stand. 

In the big game, however, the general plan is far more 
important than the individual work to be observed from 
one end, and the best place for the spectator is the one first 
mentioned. Of course, at a big game it is rarely possible 
to select one's seat, and the suggestions above have been 
made for the man who picks the wrong post even when he 
has plenty of room in which to wander. 

In recent years there has been a demand that the players 



188 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

be numbered, as is the case in Australia, but failing that it 
would be well for the spectator to evolve his own system of 
identification before the men take their places for actual 
play in the big games. There are many minutes of prelim- 
inary practice, and these are too often wasted by the on- 
looker in general enthusiasm and demonstration thereof 
when he might well be studying the teams individually 
and collectively. There is never a team the members of 
which look exactly alike. Each man has his own needs, 
likes and dislikes, in the matter of bandages, headgear and 
other protective armor, while each shows differences in 
stride and general manner of carrying himself. A little 
study of this kind would have saved from long-continued 
error many of those who witnessed the Harvard-Princeton 
game of 1912. Captain Wendell played less than two min- 
utes in that contest, yet he was constantly cheered long 
after he left the game. The crowd was too busy to pay much 
attention to the score board, and since only about 50 per 
cent, of the undergraduates seemed to know what Wendell 
looked like, he got the credit for much of the work that was 
done by other players. Yet Wendell was one of the easiest 
men on the field to. follow because of his short stature, his 
peculiarly heavy shoulders, his unusual method of running, 
and the black helmet he wore, which was like no other that 
had appeared on the field in many a day. 

Some players wear white ankle bandages on one leg or 
both, some wear jackets, others jerseys only. There are 
differences in padding that are easily recognized after a 
little painstaking observation, and there are elbow, shin 
and shoulder guards that lend individuality to the wearer. 
Some men run higher than others, some take short steps, 
while others have a free stride. In short, no two men on 
the field are exactly alike. 

One of the greatest aids to the spectator is the tendency 
nowadays to add some distinguishing mark to the men who 



FOR THE SPECTATOR 189 

are to receive the forward pass. Under the rules the pass 
may be taken only by the men who have been behind the 
line or on the ends of it when the ball was snapped. This 
means as a rule the four backs and the two ends, and these 
are often distinguished by white cross-belts, white elbow 
bands, or white squares on the back. It sometimes 
happens, as in the case of the Navy in 1912, that a line man 
will be used to receive the forward pass — a guard or tackle 
— in which case he too will almost invariably be marked. 
Care must be taken, therefore, not to confuse this man with 
one of the ends. Again, it is sometimes the case that a line 
man or two will have some distinctive mark on the back 
which will aid the backfield in taking up their positions 
quickly and accurately when shift plays are used. If six 
or seven men are thus plainly marked, the difference between 
any two of them must be found by a quick comparison of 
size and weight. 

It is of special importance to get a line on the kickers, one 
of whom ma}? - be left-footed, in which case the main protec- 
tion will be formed in front of his left side. Thus, whenever, 
after the game starts, the protection is formed on the left 
side, it is safe to assume that the kicker will be the left- 
footed man, and vice versa. Before the game the players 
will practise punting, drop and place kicking, the team 
frequently using a different man for each of these duties, 
and it is important to follow their practice as closely as 
possible, so that once the game starts the instant a man 
drops back of the line the spectator will know at once for 
which function he is there. If he has not been dropped back 
for his specialty the move has been made as a blind, and 
something novel may be expected. Under the most recent 
change in the rules the punter no longer has to kick from a 
position five yards back of his own line, and while in the 
defensive half of the field the punting will probably be done 
from a point fully eight to ten yards behind the forwards, 



190 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

the punting in attacking territory will often be done from 
close behind the line. In this case the spectator will have 
to fall back on his study of identity, for there will be no 
special formation to mark the play. 

While this study of identification will have to be done in 
the course of the preliminary practice, there will be plenty 
of time for the spectator to speculate on the effect of weather 
conditions. The wind is the most important factor in foot- 
ball generalship to-day, and all other things being nearly 
equal the team making the better use of it will win the game. 
It is important for the spectator to get an accurate idea of 
the strength and direction of the wind so that he will be 
able to arrive at a just estimate of the work of the kickers 
and the play of the ends who are covering them. To this 
end he should observe the drift of the clouds, if there be any, 
and watch the flags in the topmost rows of the stands, for 
at a point lower down the flutter of colors will be deceptive. 
Granted a fair wind the team that wins the toss will choose 
to defend the goal favored by the breeze, making one of 
the most important moves of the game. This team, the 
spectator must know, will make the utmost possible use of 
the kicking game, while the other eleven will resort more to 
running in order to use up time. 

When there is little or no wind the sun becomes an im- 
portant factor, and the team winning the toss will choose 
the goal with the sun behind it. At most fields the wind 
drops rapidly as the sun lowers, and the advantage of natural 
conditions is not supposed to be so great as a rule in the 
latter part of the game. 

The condition of the surface of the field is worth noting 
carefully, for it has a bearing of great moment on the choice 
of plays. In heavy going weight is a serious factor, while 
the value of speed, and especially of shift plays that depend 
upon perfect timing, dwindles rapidly. The kicking game 
also suffers, for it is difficult to get the ball up cleanly, 



FOR THE SPECTATOR 191 

especially when drop or place-kicking. An excellent 
example of this was the game between Yale and Princeton 
at New Haven in 1911. The sky was clear and there was a 
high wind, but the condition under foot reminded one of 
the first week's work on the Panama Canal. The Yale 
eleven was led by Arthur Howe, who had made a consider- 
able reputation as a drop-kicker, and was equipped with 
a sufficiently versatile midfield attack to bring Howe many 
times within striking distance of the Tiger goal. Indeed, 
the running attack was so well planned that many of the 
Eli coaches believed it would be good enough for one touch- 
down. Failing that it was confidently expected, and with 
sound reason, that Howe would be able to score from the 
field not once but two or three times. As it turned out, 
however, the Yale backs could not keep their feet even 
when there seemed every chance of getting clear, and 
frequently fell, sliding in the mud, with no Princeton player 
within tackling distance. Even so, they made enough 
ground to give Howe half a dozen chances to score by 
drop-kicking, only one of which he was able to accept. He 
found it simply impossible to get the ball up. Time and 
again the leather slipped in the mud just as his toe swung 
forward to meet it, and thus Yale's whole cleverly planned 
game went for nothing against an eleven that showed 
practically no running attack and was forced to depend 
entirely upon clever punting and covering of kicks, plus 
the opportunism that resulted in Sam White's long run 
for a touchdown and victory. 

Now the point I want to emphasize is this, that as Yale's 
style of attack and probable method of scoring were well 
known even to the general public before the game, the 
average spectator, had he taken careful stock of the weather 
conditions, must have realized at once that nothing but 
good fortune could give the victory to the Blue. If sun, 
wind and heavy footing have such a serious effect, hard 



192 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

rain, or indeed, even a drizzle, will also prove favorable 
to one team or another. Any eleven that has been placing 
a great deal of dependence in the forward pass will find the 
long heave, and sometimes even the short one, all but 
impracticable in the rain. The spectator must rearrange 
his estimate of the teams accordingly. 

So much for what the onlooker ought to take into account 
before the game. As soon as possible after the kick-off 
he should school himself to a disregard of the ball for the 
time being. This is perhaps the most difficult task of all, 
for there is a fascination in following the ball that grips 
even the more experienced watcher, and makes it difficult 
for him to stick to his original plan. With the exception 
of a run for a touchdown from the kick-off, or a fumble or 
blocked punt, the first minute or two of play are not likely 
to produce anything that will be missed by the man who 
is not following the ball. Since plays succeed or fail through 
the combined work of the entire team, it follows that the 
man with the ball may be yards away from a team mate 
who is doing yeoman service in keeping a player of the 
defense out of action. 

The very first thing to note, and note carefully, there- 
fore, is the work of the two sets of forwards. The team 
playing against the wind will probably start a running 
play or two soon after the game begins, and even if the 
first play be from kick formation there will be instant 
opportunity to size up the "jump" of the lines, for upon 
this "jump" the result of the battle may, and often does 
depend. Should the forwards of the team carrying — not 
kicking — the ball, get a little the better of the charge and 
get it as often as twice out of three plays, the fact is signifi- 
cant, for under the rule these men are not allowed to use 
their hands, must charge across the neutral zone between 
the lines, and have more difficulty in reaching the defensive 
players than the defensive men in reaching them. Further, 



FOR THE SPECTATOR 193 

they must reach the defensive forwards in a certain way 
if their charge is to be effective, and an ability to do so shows 
at once a superiority that, if continued with any degree 
of consistency, will mean all the difference between good 
and bad line play. The advantage, so far as the line is 
concerned, lies with the defense. 

In the line-up the backs of the attacking forwards must 
be kept straight if they are to play as they have been taught, 
and humped backs are an instant indication to the spectator 
that the men are not doing their work properly. Again, 
the perfect charge goes to the count of "one-two-three," 
and when a line is found answering to this rhythm the 
onlooker will know that it is giving of its best. It is possi- 
ble, of course, that the work of the attacking line will be 
uneven, but if the men are in good physical condition, 
and they have reached their best form more than a day 
or so before the big game, their play in the first few minutes 
of the game is apt to furnish a fair criterion for the entire 
afternoon. The exceptions to this are numerous, but they 
prove the rule. 

Now in watching this line at work the eye must exclude 
absolutely everything else, taking in the runner only as 
he reaches the line of scrimmage, and in case forwards 
are found going clear through to the secondary defense 
they should be followed to the end of their charge to ascer- 
tain whether or no they have accomplished their purpose of 
accounting for at least one man beyond the line of scrim- 
mage. Just a moment before the ball is snapped many 
of the forwards will have one knee on the ground, but the 
men will come up together to the crouch at some part of 
the signal, and if one man is behind the others he may be 
put down as a weak member. Absolute unison is one of 
the sure signs of a good set of forwards. 

In plunges through the line there must be an opening for 
the back, and it is the way in which these openings are 

13 



194 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

made that stamps the attacking line as successful or other- 
wise, always remembering to give due credit to brilliant 
defense. If there is the slightest check as the runner strikes 
his opening it means either that the attacking forwards are 
at fault, or that the defense is strong. It is in this close 
work in the line that it is so difficult to apportion justly the 
praise and the blame for the success or failure of the plays, 
as the case may be. 

The study of the defense is equally complicated, for the 
players have more range, and that slight natural advantage 
that goes with letting the other fellow have the ball. There 
is more latitude in the position of the defensive player than 
in that of the attacking forward, and it is here that individual 
genius crops out. The men will be swinging their hands, 
now, and using them freely on the charge. The use of the 
hands should be closely watched, for as I explained in the 
chapter on technique, it is one of the foundations of line 
defense. It sometimes happens that both lines will be 
charging better on defense than on attack, in which case 
the spectator may look for difficulty in using the running 
attack, and a low score, while should both be charging better 
on attack than defense the running plays of both teams 
are likely to be effective, and there may be scoring on both 
sides, with a chance that the totals will be high. Of 
course, when one line is charging better than the other 
both on attack and defense, the game will be theirs, if 
supported by any sort of a backfield. 

The play of the backs may now be taken up, and the ball 
followed only on its journey to the player who is to carry 
it, after which each back should be watched in turn to get 
an idea of his versatility, and to learn whether he is of full 
value to his eleven when not carrying the leather. The 
interference is especially important. Are the men getting 
their opponents out of the play to stay, or are they only 
bumping them momentarily? How many men are on the 



FOR THE SPECTATOR 195 

ground after the backs have passed the line of scrimmage? 
These are questions that should be answered at the earliest 
possible moment if the spectator is to enjoy the game to the 
full. Quick starting, clean handling of the ball, mutual 
helpfulness, always remembering that the rules no longer 
permit a man to push or pull the runner — these are the 
signs of a smoothly working set of backs. 

On the defense the positions of the backs should be care- 
fully noted, shutting out in the course of this observation 
the attack until it reaches the line. Under modern condi- 
tions a team is heavily dependent upon its secondary defense. 
The backs must come up to the line fast, and their tackling 
must be deadly. If any of the defensive backs is being 
put out of the play it is well to note how and by whom, for 
the man who is doing it is playing sterling football for his 
team. But if a forward is doing the execution rather than 
a back, and if he is doing it before the attack reaches the 
line, then there is cause for finding the back wanting in one 
of his most important duties. 

With the close offensive and defensive work of the backs 
fairly mastered, the onlooker should take up the kicking 
game, watching in order: the line, the protecting backs, 
the kicker, the defensive line, the defensive backs, and the 
work of the men down the field. It is a good plan in study- 
ing the line on kicks to begin with the center, then to take the 
guards, tackles and ends in pairs. In the case of the center 
his passing is of the utmost importance. If he is not 
sending the ball back with a single sweep, but is raising it 
slightly from the ground before sending it back, his team is 
in for trouble, for not only will the opposing team know when 
a kick is to be made, and when a short pass to a runner, 
in which case there will be no temptation to raise the ball 
before shooting it back, but the opposing center will try to 
spoil the pass, since the ball is in play the instant it leaves 
the ground. The center must block longest of any of the 



196 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

forwards, since through his position is the shortest path to 
the kicker, and if he lets a man through him now and then 
he is not playing up to standard. The guards block next 
longest to the center, and they too should prevent any man 
from coming through until the back is all but rid of the ball. 

If men are coming through the line anywhere from tackle 
to tackle it means that the kicker is not getting the protec- 
tion to which he is entitled and that a blocked kick need 
not be a surprising result. The tackles have more latitude 
in their protection of the kicker than the guards, and the 
tackle on the side of the line opposite to the kicker's foot 
may get away a little ahead of his mate. As a general 
rule they may start down the field the instant the ball has 
reached the kicker. The ends go down the instant 
the ball is snapped and therefore are not counted upon as 
protectors. 

The protecting backs, two of whom are on the same side 
of the line as the punter's kicking foot, are supposed to care 
for men coming through the tackle positions or from end 
in an attempt to block the kick. Of course they must 
above all things stop any player who sifts through the line 
inside the tackles. This latter, however, is a situation that 
they will not have to confront if the forwards are doing 
their work. The protecting backs should spill their men 
completely, so that no man is leaping in the air, especially 
on the punter's kicking side, when he sends the ball away. 

The next man to watch is the punter himself, who may 
be either a "one-step" or a " two-step" kicker, which means 
that he takes either one or two steps when he sends the 
ball away. This watching of steps, of course, does not apply 
to the kicker when he is making a short run to one side in 
order to gain a little time. As a rule, however, the kicker 
makes no adjustment of the ball in his hands, getting it into 
position to drop to his instep simply by turning the hands, 
drops it at once, takes one step with the foot with which 



FOR THE SPECTATOR 197 

he is not to kick, and then sends the ball away. The " two- 
step" kicker may get a great deal of distance, and be able 
to take enough room behind the scrimmage line to be sure 
of getting the ball away, but with close kicking once more 
in the game he will not be as valuable to his team as the 
" one-step" man. 

The kicking system carefully observed, the spectator 
may turn to the defense against it, noting carefully whether 
the punter is outkicking his ends so that they are slow in 
getting to the catcher, or whether these down-field men 
have been held up on the way by clever blocking on the part 
of backs or ends of the receiving side. He should watch 
carefully to see whether the defensive ends are played back 
of the line against a palpable kick formation, or kept on 
the line to hurry the kicker, for this will be an indication 
of the general style adopted by the team. He is apt to find 
that a team that plays a "waiting end" defense on regular 
line plays, will play the ends back much of the time against 
a kick formation, no matter what the number of the down. 

All these points settled, the man in the stand may profita- 
bly turn his attention to changes in the system of play 
from the normal — watching the formation of the backs, 
whether square, diagonal, "L" or any of the more common 
styles, and keeping an eye out for shifts in the line or back- 
field. In this, of course, he will have to keep an eye out for 
individual identification marks, but the matter will be 
greatly simplified if before the game he has made some study 
of the diagrams accompanying Chapter VI. 

One of the most important points is the activity of the 
forwards in the interference. The spectator should strive 
to find out just which men and how many swing out of their 
places in the line to join the interference, and whether the 
tendency to use the forwards in this way is greater than the 
leaning toward sending them straight through to the second- 
ary defense. It was a long time in the season of 1912 before 



198 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

even some of the experts realized that Yale was constantly 
seeking to use sometimes one guard, sometimes two in the 
interference, and the great mass of spectators never did 
know it. 

It may be that the man who is watching the first big 
game will have a long wait before he has a chance to see 
the forward pass in action, and he may be fairly sure that 
it will not be used in defensive territory — but the principal 
thing of which to take note when it does appear, is whether 
the ball is thrown to a particular individual who has already 
taken his position, or whether sent away to a spot where a 
player is supposed to arrive simultaneously with the ball. 
The latter method is the greater " chance-taker/ ' for there 
is considerable danger that the fling will be intercepted for 
a run, and the more risky method should be " covered" 
by some player who will be ready to make a tackle should a 
player of the opposing team snatch the ball in mid-career. 
The spectator may well approve a pass so covered, and 
condemn a pass left unprotected. 

At the end of the first half it is a good plan to go in for a 
mental recapitulation that what happens in the second 
half may be the expected rather than the unexpected. 
Has one team done a great deal more running than the 
other without once getting inside its opponent's 25-yard 
line? If it has, and it is behind in the point total, or there 
has been no scoring, then it is in worse case than its opponent, 
on general principles. Has the team with the wind behind 
it scored? Then when facing the wind it may play for time 
and conserve its energy with better than an even chance of 
success. If, on the contrary, the team that had the favor- 
ing wind, has frittered away its chances, it is not a sound 
team, and finds itself in a dangerous position. Upon the 
answers to these questions and an analysis of the general 
play may be built a fair prophesy of the ultimate outcome. 

Right here the matter of condition plays an important 



FOR THE SPECTATOR 199 

part, and it is often too subtle a problem even for the expert. 
Under the modern rules men are more apt to become ex- 
hausted on the field through their own efforts than because 
of the constant bumping into their opponents. That is 
why it is so important to contrast the amount of the work 
done by the two teams in the first half. A finely condi- 
tioned eleven will last through, even though worked more 
than it ought to have been in the wrong field situations, 
but if there is any tendency toward "cracking" it should 
show as soon as a team is on the defense after a period of 
hard and perhaps fruitless work. The spectator must 
remember that a tired team will be apt to come to life if 
it is able to score and so tie up the game, and in the case of 
sheer grit no rules apply. 

I think that if the spectator will follow the suggestions 
given above he will come nearer than he has in the past to 
grasping the scheme of football, and so getting more enjoy- 
ment out of it, but it means that he must make up his mind 
to do a lot of thinking while the teams are in action until 
such time as he can safely follow the ball and at the same 
time catch the other points of play as a matter of mental 
habit. His interest in football as well as his understanding 
of it will also be increased, I feel certain, if he will study 
the game after it is over with more care than is usually 
the case. He should compare his own opinions of the 
team and individual play, and of the generalship, with 
those of other men who have been trained to watch it 
carefully, and so the better prepare himself for another 
season. 

There breathes no human being so keen that he can 
follow a football game from start to finish and catch every 
one of its finer points, but it is within the powers of every 
man to get into much closer touch with it than has been the 
case with the mass of football followers in the past. While 
it would be a good plan for the spectator to make some 



200 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

study of the rules before the season opens, it is doubtful 
if even then he would understand the infliction of penalties 
thoroughly, as he sees them on the field. I am giving here 
a summary of the penalties and their causes which may be 
of more value in a hurry than a search through the rule 
book. I am also undertaking to remind the spectator of 
the fundamental laws of football that affect almost every 
play, not attempting to rewrite the rule book, but to call 
attention to the restrictions under which the teams have 
to work in a general way. The distance penalties, then, 
are as follows: 

Loss of Two Yards 

Time taken out more than three times in the course of a 
half. (This is a most unusual penalty, and I have never 
seen it enforced. There are occasions when for lack of 
substitutes and because of recurring injuries more time out 
is needed than is allowed in the rules. In such a case it is 
common for the captain of the team offended against to 
waive the penalty.) 

Loss of Five Yards 

Violation of the offside rule, illegal positions, etc. (a) at 
kick-off; (b) at scrimmage; (c) at kick-out; (d) at punt-out; 
(e) at try-at-goal; (f) at free kick: player out of bounds 
(more than one violation in same scrimmage) ; putting ball 
in play other than as provided (more than one violation in 
same scrimmage); guard carrying ball; feint to snap ball; 
attempt to draw opponents offside; player attempting fair 
catch taking more than two steps after making catch; 
unreasonable delay; interference with opponents before 
ball is put in play; holding by the defensive side (i.e., 
holding or otherwise interfering with the hands and arms or 
actually tackling a man or men not in possession of the ball 



FOR THE SPECTATOR 201 

save in a bona fide attempt to get at the runner) ; crawling 
by the player carrying the ball; illegal tackling; unfair play 
not specifically covered in the rules. 

Loss of Ten Yards 

Interference by defensive side in case of forward pass. 
(This section of Rule XVIII is so important that I give it 
here in full: "No player of the side which did not put the 
ball in play shall in any manner interfere with an opponent 
who has crossed the line of scrimmage until the ball has been 
touched, except in an actual attempt to catch the ball 
himself. If a team makes a forward pass the ball is consid- 
ered to be still in its possession unless and until the pass has 
been declared incompleted or has been recovered by the 
opponents.") 

Loss of Fifteen Yards 

Failure of substitute to report to Referee or Umpire; 
illegal return to game; player leaving field during one-minute 
intermissions; interference with a fair catch; throwing player 
who has made fair catch; pushing, pulling, interlocked 
interference, etc. (It should be borne in mind in connection 
with this rule that the player with the ball may place his 
hand on a team mate but not take hold so as to be pulled 
along. Nor can any of his own side drag him to his feet 
that he may get under way again); holding by side in pos- 
session of the ball. (There are four "dont's" the violation 
of which bring about the infliction of the penalty. They 
are: grasping an opponent with the hands or arms, placing 
the hands upon an opponent to push him away from the 
play, encircling in any degree any part of an opponent with 
the arm, and, using the arms in any way to lift an opponent 
in blocking. It is of the utmost importance that the spec- 
tator remember these, for the holding penalty is one most 



202 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

frequently inflicted) ; forward pass by side not putting ball 
in play; piling up; hurdling; tripping; tackling out of bounds, 
etc.; sideline coaching; persons on field without permission 
of officials; more than one person walking on sidelines. 

So often does one hear the cry of " hurdling" from the 
grandstand, and so seldom is the hurdling penalty imposed 
immediately thereafter, that it is well worth while getting 
an accurate idea once for all of what hurdling as the officials 
understand it, really is. The rule offers no definition, but 
hurdling in football is like hurdling on the track, a deliberate 
attempt to clear an obstacle by leaping when in full stride 
with the knee of the leg in advance well up, and quitting 
the stride for an instant for that purpose. In other words, 
hurdling in football is not striding or running over the bodies 
of prostrate opponents. Furthermore a player on one 
knee may be hurdled without penalty. Hurdling in football 
is extremely rare nowadays. 

Loss of Twenty-five Yards 
Team not ready to play at start of second half. 

Loss of Half Distance to Goal Line 

Player disqualified for striking, kneeing, kicking, etc.; 
foul within the one-yard line. (This last is to prevent the 
inflicting of the customary penalty carrying the ball across 
the goal line.) 

These are all the distance penalties, and with a little 
application they may be learned without delving too deeply 
into the verbiage of the complete rules. There remain, 
however, other important penalties, as follows: 

Loss of a Down 

Interference by side making a forward pass prior to a 
fourth down; illegal forward pass prior to a fourth down; 



FOR THE SPECTATOR 203 

forward pass striking ground prior to a fourth down; (it is 
interesting to note here something that may puzzle the 
spectator. He will see a player run back some distance 
preparatory to making a forward pass, only to find all his 
men covered, or the defense through on him so fast that he 
cannot be sure of making a good pass, then throw the ball 
to the ground only a few feet in front of him. There is 
no cure in the rules for this. The passer simply accepts the 
penalty of a down deliberately rather than lose a great deal 
of distance in the event of being tackled, or risk making a 
wild fling. It is undoubtedly against the spirit of the 
forward pass rule, as it nullifies excellent work on the part 
of the defense, but is not against the letter.) 

Loss of Ball 

Ball kicked out of bounds unless touched by a player 
entitled to touch it, in which case it goes to the player first 
recovering it out of bounds; interference by side making 
forward pass on fourth down; backward pass, out of bounds, 
on fourth down; illegal or incomplete forward pass on fourth 
down; if forward pass be illegally recovered or touched by 
passer's side; forward pass out of bounds on the fly; batting 
the ball; offside player touching ball; kicker recovering ball. 

Suspension 

Illegal return to game (this is of course an individual 
penalty, the team itself being penalized fifteen yards as 
mentioned above); illegal equipment; unsportsmanlike 
conduct. (Herein there is wide discretion. The idea of 
the penalty is to prevent the use of abusive and insulting 
language to players or officials and also prevent such a 
maneuver as that employed by Carlisle against Harvard 
some years ago when an Indian ran the length of the field 
for a touchdown with the ball concealed under his jersey.) 



204 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

Disqualification 

/ This is the individual penalty for striking, kneeing, kick- 
ing, etc., that goes with the team penalty of half the distance 
to the goal line, roughing the fullback. (The term " full- 
back" is here used to indicate the kicker. Since the kicker 
under the rules cannot run down the field and put his own 
men onside, or recover the ball himself, it follows that 
roughing him is sheer wanton "muckerism" which should 
be punished by the harshest individual penalty in the code.) 

Forfeiture of Game 

Refusal to abide by the Referee's opinion as to length of 
game; refusal to play within two minutes after order by 
Referee; refusal to allow game to proceed. 

The scoring of a touchdown, goal from touchdown, and 
goal from field, whether by drop or placement kick is fairly 
understood, but the scoring of a safety has probably 
puzzled more onlookers than any other play in the game. 
The average spectator is inclined to believe that there is 
only one way of scoring a safety, which, of course, counts 
against the team making it, but in reality there is more 
than one way, and so important is the rule governing the 
play that I give it in full, suggesting that it be carefully 
examined. Here it is: 

"A safety is made when the ball in possession of a player 
guarding his own goal is declared dead by the Referee, any 
part of it being on, above or behind the goal line, provided 
the impetus which caused it to pass from outside the goal 
line to or behind the goal line was given by the side defend- 
ing the goal. Such impetus could come from: 

"A kick, pass, snapback or fumble by one of the player's 
own side. 

"A kick which bounded back from an opponent or from 



FOR THE SPECTATOR 205 

one of the kicker's own side, who, when struck, was behind 
his goal line. 

" In case a player carrying the ball is forced back, provided 
the ball was not declared dead by the Referee before the 
goal line was reached or crossed. 

"A safety is made when a player of the side in possession 
of the ball makes a forward pass which becomes incom- 
pleted behind his goal line or commits a foul which would 
give the ball to the opponents behind the offender's goal line. 

"A safety is made when the ball, kicked by a man behind 
his goal line crosses the extended portion of either sideline.' ' 

Quite a little more to it than would have been suspected 
by one who had not kept up with the changes in the rules. 

Now when a touchback is made the crowd often does not 
understand why it was not a safety, apparently having 
reached the conclusion that as soon as a man of the defend- 
ing side was down with the ball behind his own goal line he 
had made a safety. The fundamental difference is the 
impetus which sent the ball across the line. But there is 
one important instance in which a touchback is made even 
when the impetus that sent the ball across the goal line 
came from a player of the defending side. The exception 
should be noted carefully, since the situation has frequently 
arisen only to puzzle the entire crowd and call down 
condemnation on the head of the devoted Referee. I give 
in full the two paragraphs of the rule covering the case: 

"It is a touchback when a player on defense permits a 
ball, kicked by an opponent, to strike his person and then 
roll across the goal line and he or any player of his side 
then falls on it back of the line." (This always looks like 
a safety to the crowd.) 

"It is not a touchback if such player juggles the ball 
so that he in any way forces it over the line and he or any 
player of his side then falls on it." 

Just one other point that affects the kicking game and 



206 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

causes much misunderstanding among spectators, and I 
shall leave the dry rules to the tender mercies of the officials. 
When a player going down the field under a ball kicked 
by his own side — he is what is known technically as offside — 
is touched by the ball before it touches an opponent, the 
ball goes to the opponents on the spot where the foul 
occurred; with one exception — when the offending player 
is touched by the ball before it touches an opponent inside 
opponent's 10-yard line it is a touchback for the defenders 
of the goal. 

Now for certain fundamentals that must be remembered 
if the spectator would follow the play intelligently: 

When a team is on the offensive and takes up the running 
game there are eight men who are permitted by rule to 
carry the ball on the direct pass from the center. The 
three exceptions are, the center and the two guards. But 
while the center cannot run with the ball at all, the guards 
may run with it after it has passed through the hands of 
some player, presumably the quarterback, other than the 
center. Further it is unlikely that a tackle or end will run 
with the ball on the direct pass, although it can be done. 

When the offensive team is to make a forward pass the 
rules require that the passer must be five yards behind the 
line of scrimmage when the ball is thrown. The passer 
may take up the legal position before the ball is snapped, 
in which case, while any play may be made, the spectator 
would do well to be on the lookout for the pass; or, the passer 
may reach the legal position by running back five yards 
after receiving the ball from the center, in which case the 
spectator will have ample warning that a forward pass is 
to be made. 

The onlooker must remember that there are only six men 
eligible to receive the pass — strictly speaking only five, 
since the man who makes the throw must be counted out — 
and that these men are, under the rules, the two playing 



FOR THE SPECTATOR 207 

on the ends of the line when the ball is snapped, and any 
man at least one yard behind that line. Since there must 
be seven men on the line it follows that the remaining 
eligibles, after the ends are considered, must be the backs. 
But it often happens that there is some very tall and power- 
ful man in the scrimmage line who is a good receiver of the 
forward pass. If the spectator finds such a man on one 
end of the line after a shift has been made he should be on 
the lookout for a forward pass to the newcomer. 

When there is no wind to speak of and a team is in its 
own territory the spectator may look for kicking as early 
as the first or second down, while when the team is in its 
opponent's territory he may expect the full use of the 
running and passing games. With these general principles 
in mind and some attention paid to the kinks in the rules 
explained above, the spectator should be well enough equip- 
ped to follow the game with profit and a desire to become 
even better acquainted with its finer points. 



CHAPTER XII 

SECTIONAL AND TEAM TYPES COACHING TENDENCIES — 

FUTURE STRATEGY 

Many a man has left the stand after a Harvard- Yale 
game declaring for the benefit of all those who would stop 
to listen, "That was not a Yale, team," or, "I never saw a 
Harvard eleven like that before." Just what did he mean? 
Nine times out of ten, if pressed, he could not tell. What 
he did mean was that through years of watching the game 
he gained a number of impressions which in their sum 
marked Yale or Harvard as a type — as a team type. The 
absence of one little thing or another — just what he could 
not say — resulted in his failing to get the same series of 
impressions and thus the idea of type. For team types do 
exist, although they are not as clearly marked as they were 
years ago. Time was when a spectator fairly well up on 
football could have identified a Harvard, Yale, Princeton or 
Pennsylvania team almost as far as he could see it, no mat- 
ter what the colors worn. The same was true, too, in the 
early days in the West, when Michigan was quite distinct, 
for instance, from Chicago. But team types and sectional 
types are slowly passing. The spreading knowledge of the 
game all over the country and the changes in the rules im- 
pose conditions which must frequently be met by the crea- 
tive students of the game, the coaches, by work along 
identical lines. 

This fact still remains — that two Princeton veterans, 
even though miles apart, are apt to reason closer together 

208 



TYPES— TENDENCIES— STRATEGY 209 

than one Yale and one Princeton veteran, and so on, and 
in this way team types are perpetuated. But two Princeton 
veterans will come closer to the conclusions reached by two 
Yale veterans than would have been the case years ago. As 
the years draw on I think that, with fairly stable rules, the 
type differences will draw nearer and nearer the vanishing 
point without ever quite reaching it. And this is a good 
thing for the game, for the simple reason that the nearer the 
game approaches a standard the more chance will there be 
for the expression of football genius both by coach and 
player. The "Yale school/' the " Harvard school," the 
" Princeton school," of football are losing their sharp dis- 
tinctions little by little. So that some years from now the 
man who says "That did not look like a Yale team," will 
really mean that it did not look like any standard team. 
Certain little matters of technique undoubtedly will re- 
main, but it is inevitable in this day of free exchange of 
coaching opinion and extreme vigilance that the most 
cherished principles of one "system," when sound, will be 
adopted into another "system." 

Without doubt Yale was the first institution to have a 
winning "system," and that system long remained a mys- 
tery, but year after year coaches went out from New Haven 
and freely taught what they had learned there. This does 
not mean the giving away of any "secrets," for there are 
fewer real secrets in football than the man outside the 
coaching council imagines, and despite the atmosphere of 
mystery with which the coaches love to surround them- 
selves there is not a great deal to hide. Given patience, 
application, and the right kind of brains, and even the 
most difficult cryptogram may be read. It would be idle 
to suppose, therefore, that able football men had not been 
working from the outside on system after system. Some 
of the secrets have been brought to light in that way. The 
ultimate system, or standard, will be a composite of all 

14 



210 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

that is good in all systems. This standard will still vary in 
detail at the various universities. 

In the nature of things there will be more variation in the 
attack than in the defense, for the defense is already pretty 
close to standard in the East, and gradually approaching 
that point in the West. The defense varies principally 
when being specially prepared to meet an eleven unusually 
well equipped in some one branch of play, as in kicking or 
forward passing. But nine coaches out of ten, in planning 
attack, have in mind a standard defense, and build their 
theory accordingly, which means, in the end, that the 
theory of attack, not its application to a team specially 
equipped at certain points, must itself approach a standard. 
Were a coach dealing with automata of fixed values instead 
of variable human quantities he would eventually evolve 
a sort of extremely interesting chess. 

I shall not attempt here to say when a Yale team is a 
Yale team, a Harvard team a Harvard team, etc., but to 
sketch in the sort of football they have played in the past 
as it impressed the man in the stands — the sort of football 
that has led to the idea of team types. In general my idea 
of Yale is synonymous with power and resource; of Harvard 
with brilliancy, until recently spasmodic; of Princeton, blind- 
ing speed; and of Pennsylvania, variety. All these are 
reflected in other institutions East and West. Teams such 
as Dartmouth and Brown do not leave a settled type im- 
pression, although the coaching is of the highest class, and 
the Army and Navy are on advanced theoretical ground 
but erratic in execution. Carlisle is not a rounded team, 
as a rule, but the impression one gains of the Indians' play 
year in and year out is one of extreme variety on attack. 
Cornell has had occasional teams that approached the 
modern advanced theory, but I do not think the Ithacans 
have ever reached the type stage. 

In the West there has been less of the type idea, save as 



TYPES— TENDENCIES— STRATEGY 21 1 

one eleven or another reflected Yale or Princeton coaching, 
with the exception of Michigan, whose eleven has always 
been the great chance-taker of the football world. 

Yale football has always been the football of resource — 
the football that was always looked to to accomplish the 
impossible, and frequently did accomplish the improbable. 
If one plan failed, another succeeded, and there is almost 
always more in a Yale team in the last five minutes of play 
than in any other eleven. Yale has built the attack around 
weight when it was possible to get weight, and the teams 
have kept their feet better than any others. George Foster 
Sanford, one of Yale's greatest coaches, has said, "I am 
the man who put the power behind the ball." It is true 
of Yale teams of the past, when it was permitted by rule to 
push and pull the runner, that the power not only has been 
behind the ball but very often with it. A Yale play had 
more than one thrust. It swept along like a wave — it gath- 
ered momentum, and the farther it went the more powerful 
it grew. It was an axiom that Yale would always be 
equipped with a sound defense. The defense has been the 
pride of the New Haven system for years. In the old days 
smaller elevens considered it a practical victory could they 
only score on Yale. Yale has always begun with the de- 
fense and ended with the attack. There were times when 
the attack was so powerful that the defense was never put 
to the test. But at New Haven a clean goal line has been 
a fetish. It is true that in recent years it has been impossi- 
ble to repeat the old records when the season's total ran to 
something like 500 to 0, but to be scored upon is still looked 
upon with greater horror at New Haven than anywhere 
else on the football map. 

Yale's resources extend even to the use of the "shoe- 
string," the desperate violation of all generalship what- 
soever in the effort to win. The Blue has been the greatest 
rallying team between the halves, not so much because the 



212 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

"Yale spirit," about which we read so much in the news- 
papers, has been aroused, as because there have been capable 
men at hand to correct technical faults that have come 
to light in the first half. And a Yale team of the first 
half has often been so little astray from the fundamentals 
of Yale football, that the brief intermission was all that 
was needed to set it right. Little things make larger 
differences in the play of a Yale eleven than in that of any 
other. These sudden changes in form have resulted not 
from sudden change in theory, but from change in execution. 
So when the spectator says of a Yale team that it does not 
look like a Yale team, he unconsciously means that it has 
not shown resource, and has appeared to lack power. 
Yale has not had as many wonderful backs as one or two 
other elevens, but there has almost always been a great line 
— if not a great line, then a good one. Yale has won more 
games with poorer backs than any other university, and 
that means power in the line properly applied. 

Harvard football has almost always been brilliant, even in 
defeat, but has suffered too often one of the penalties of bril- 
liancy, a tendency toward erratic performance as a team. It 
is only in the last few years that the Crimson's type of play 
has settled down to something approaching finish. There 
have been great forwards at Cambridge, but after all, the 
lasting impression one gets of Harvard football is that of a 
brilliant backfield. The list of splendid Harvard backs is 
as long as one's arm, and they have been men who too often 
have been on a losing team. For some unknown reason 
the schools that "feed" the Crimson seem to send up better 
backs than forwards, and at this writing it seems certain 
that Harvard will be well equipped behind the line for years 
to come. 

With plenty of material for the backfield the natural 
tendency is toward quickly made formations and a rapidity 
and sweep of play not found in elevens which are more de- 






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TYPES— TENDENCIES— STRATEGY 213 

pendent upon the work of the forwards. It was natural, 
of course, that Harvard should show advances in individual 
backfield play far beyond the ordinary, and with the 
excellent material at hand Harvard has imposed more 
duties upon the back than upon the forward. The season 
of 1912 was a fair sample, when a single back was told off 
now and then to take care of the most dangerous man in 
the line of the opposing team, with the result that individual 
interference at Cambridge is worth copying when the 
dependable men are at hand. 

Prior to the advent of Haughton there had been a real 
football " school" at Cambridge which was in the front 
rank, but much of the scattered knowledge that had made 
Harvard teams formidable in the old days was solidified 
in Haughton, and he is to-day the best expression of what 
Harvard football really means. It is really beyond the 
line of scrimmage that Harvard's best work is done, and 
this in varying degree, I think, always has been the case. 
Like Yale, the Crimson has depended less upon deception and 
more upon effective execution than most other universities, 
if we except some of the shifts, which, after all, were used 
rather to keep the strong side of the line in action. Taking 
Harvard's backfield men in the mass, I believe that they 
have shown greater ability in turning at the right point 
and making their direct run into the tackier count for more 
than the backflelds of any other university, also considered 
in the mass. Until quite recently Harvard has not shown 
the resource that has been one of the outstanding features 
of the Yale system, and the mistakes made have been as 
bad as the good work was brilliant — in other words there 
was always something of a drift toward extremes. Beaten 
Harvard elevens have played a brand of football that if 
kept up throughout the game would have insured victory, 
but, once "in the hole," the Crimson has not shown the 
resource that would bring victory out of defeat. Even the 



214 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

best that Harvard had in the way of coaching was committed 
to some extent to the machine idea, and when the machine 
idea failed, there was nothing to fall back on. Thus Har- 
vard has in the past set before the football public more in 
the way of well conceived plays than any other eleven, 
but once these plays failed to produce the results anticipated, 
the machine has shown a tendency to go to pieces, save in 
such instances, as when beaten, it has come back, too late, 
to the great standard on which it had been built originally. 
Considered as a team type, then, Harvard has done the big 
things brilliantly, and the little things rather poorly when 
under pressure, with the result that the Crimson leaves the 
impression of great backfield work and fair line play. In 
emergencies Harvard failed — this, of course, merely the 
record of the past, for Harvard's football future is bright 
indeed. 

The last few years have seen the beginnings of a change 
I believe to be permanent. In the years to come, if the 
Crimson keeps on its present course, I believe that it, like 
Yale, will never go very far astray, and will achieve such a 
foundation that when in difficulties it will be necessary to 
go only a little way below the surface to unearth the best 
football in the country. 

Princeton generally does the unexpected. The Tigers 
are originators in football, always have been and always 
will be. Too much credit cannot be given to the Orange 
and Black for prompt acceptance of the radically changed 
rules, and the determination to make the most of them. 
The onside kick, now no longer a part of the code, is a fair 
sample. This play was the most difficult to make, and 
at the same time perhaps the most fascinating in modern 
football. The Tigers took it up promptly, and while 
others complained of it, proceeded promptly to put it 
into execution. That they were never able to make it 
the scoring factor it promised at one time to be was 



TYPES— TENDENCIES— STRATEGY 215 

not the fault of Princeton's conception or execution of 
the play. 

Among the very first to realize the value of the "loose 
ball" game under the new rules, Princeton opened out the 
play to the limit, and maintaining the terrific speed that 
had been typically Princetonian from the earliest days, 
played the game in the spirit as well as under the letter of 
the rules, with a stubborn courage of conviction that should 
have yielded even more victories. There are certain fea- 
tures of Princeton's play that to this day are debatable, 
and that are frequently censured by the non-partisan, but 
there can be no doubt of Princeton's honest belief in the new 
football, and sincerity of purpose in working it out along 
original lines. In 1912, to be sure, the Tigers took up the 
Minnesota shift, used in the East prior to that time by Yale, 
but took it up with a more thorough realization of its possi- 
bilities than was the case with Yale. At New Haven it 
had been of value as a "rescue play," but at Princeton, 
the Tigers were quicker to seize its fundamental principles 
entire and to realize that without any too much weight, and 
with the principal dependence upon sheer speed, the play 
was admirably suited to the Nassau school of football. 

There has never been in any other Eastern university 
anything to equal for high speed the tackle run that for 
so many years was the outstanding feature of Princeton's 
play. Its effectiveness has varied, of course, but the fun- 
damental principle has remained to be the admiration of 
all followers of football, of whatever gridiron school. The 
Princeton sentiment is for open football, and I think always 
will be. The game to the Princetonian is spectacular, and 
certainly, with individual opportunists like the Poes, 
John DeWitt and Sanford B. White at hand from time to 
time, there has been everything to create that sort of 
"atmosphere." Undoubtedly as the various "schools" of 
football approach a standard Princeton's methods may not 



216 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

be as salient as they have been in the past, but the Tigers 
have certainly demonstrated convincingly the value of 
speed to the game, and in the matter of following the ball, 
one of the best supports of very fast play, have been almost 
uncanny. This following of the ball, indeed, belongs to 
the " atmosphere" of football at Princeton. Princeton 
football as a type, then, means tremendous pace, with the 
deception that goes with pace. 

Pennsylvania has played some of the most sensational 
football of any team in the East. Ibis only in the last few 
"years that the Quakers have seemed to get down to some- 
thing approaching a plan of generalship that can be handed 
down from one coaching squad to another, preferring as a 
rule to do the unexpected, to put faith in special plays, and 
to use these in any part of the field and trust to their bril- 
liant execution for victory. The old time " guards back," 
of course, was in the nature of a planned game, for this was 
a play that would bear constant repetition, and was so 
powerful in its nature as to constitute an entire offense. 
With the radical changes in the rules, however, and the 
necessary abandonment of the " guards back," the Quakers 
have developed a style of play that has not always stood 
the test of the keenest criticism but has shown the most 
remarkable variety. The Quakers were among the first to 
change the established order of the backs and to work out 
a system of open football that was a puzzler to those elevens 
that had not been working along much the same lines. 
Unexpected plays were made in unexpected spots, and these 
plays were often successful even when violating the rules 
of generalship as they had been worked out at other leading 
institutions and depending upon sprinters in the backfield. 
It would be interesting to see how the Red and Blue method 
would work out once more against an eleven that uses the 
accepted Eastern generalship. In 1912 against a rebuilt 
Cornell eleven playing a systematic style of game the 



TYPES— TENDENCIES— STRATEGY 217 

Quakers seemed to have developed a system of their own. 
Their choice of plays on the various downs was quite differ- 
ent from what it had been in the past, but I think, had the 
material been a little better, the Red and Blue would have 
gone back to some of its old methods and would have used 
greater variety of play than was in evidence in that par- 
ticular game. 

The old form of the onside kick and the field goal from 
placement are peculiar to the Quakers, and like Princeton, 
the Red and Blue fought desperately to make something of 
the onside kick that was barred by the rule changes of 1912. 
Like Princeton, Pennsylvania deserved better luck with 
this well conceived and well executed play. But to-day 
as always Pennsylvania may be relied upon to make a play 
for the play's sake, and with an apparent utter disregard 
of consequences, should anything go wrong. It is this 
tendency that makes it one of the most interesting elevens 
in the country and leaves the impression that without the 
variety that has marked it in the past football at Pennsyl- 
vania would be of little moment. Indeed, with such a 
typical tendency toward variety the work of Pennsylvania 
may have a considerable effect on the generalship that is 
to come. 

Two great fundamental differences mark Eastern and 
Western football. First, the Western coach usually be- 
thinks himself of the offense before he tackles defense, 
while the Easterner is primarily absorbed in defense; 
second, there does not seem to be the same sustained power 
in attack in the West that one finds in the East. The 
Western runner does not stop when tackled as was his 
wont some years ago, but there is no gainsaying the fact 
that the Westerners do not keep their feet as do the East- 
erners, while at the same time showing in their entire theory 
of attack greater deception than is to be found in the East. 
Indeed, the West seems to believe more in deception than 



218 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

in execution. At least the stress is on deception. There 
are Eastern football men, too, who believe in deception 
and use it to the best of their ability in coaching teams, but 
on the whole they do not seem to feel that the deception 
is quite so important. The type difference, then, is the 
difference in the conception of the play and of what the men 
concerned in it must be expected to accomplish. 

It is only in recent years that the Western defense has 
come to approach the range of the Eastern defense, whereas 
Yost, the Michigan coach, has been far in advance of any 
Eastern coach in the planning of the forward pass. Again, 
few Eastern elevens have been able to maintain the pace 
set by Yost with certain of his " Hurry up " elevens, especially 
when he had Martin Heston behind the line. Heston has 
been called by good authorities the fastest man for fifteen 
yards in the country. Yost's attack was built around this 
man, who ran from the position of right or left halfback with 
equal facility, and the Michigan teams of those days were 
made up of giants. At Chicago, Stagg, another Easterner, 
and a Yale man, went in for the open game with a vengeance, 
and he in common with other coaches of the West, even 
though originally Easterners, has always fought for the reten- 
tion of the forward pass. In individual technique the coach- 
ing of Western line men has always been behind that in the 
East. Line play, especially on the defense, has been more 
compact, and although the West developed such men as 
Schultz, the wonderful Michigan centre, and Benbrook, the 
equally remarkable guard, it cannot be said that there has 
ever been in the middle West a complete line that would 
have satisfied Eastern coaches. 

To Dr. Williams, at Minnesota, a Yale man, belongs the 
credit for developing typical plays that did not depend, as 
did most of Yost's, upon the new game, but that were based 
on fundamental principles. In general it may be said that 
the Westerners are far readier to try a new idea than the 



TYPES— TENDENCIES— STRATEGY 219 

Easterners, and belong to the party of progress in football, 
while the Easterners sometimes suffer from excessive con- 
servatism. On the Pacific Coast there has been nothing 
in football that could fairly be called typical. There have 
been many Eastern coaches at work in that -section, but 
their methods have been for the most part such as are to be 
found in the East. 

Before leaving the subject of team types a word should 
be said about Prof. Raymond G. Gettell, of Trinity, who has 
evolved a system peculiarly his own. Prof. Gettell is a 
graduate of Ursinus College, a small Pennsylvania institu- 
tion, where by the way, they turn out excellent football 
teams. The point is, that while Prof. Gettell, who has 
had remarkable successes at Trinity, is himself an ex-foot- 
ball player, he has been a quite independent thinker, and 
has made the most of the open game, not hesitating to build 
his team on advanced lines, without any care for precedent 
or the experiences of others. It has been simply a case of 
applying brains to theoretical football, with the result 
that although short of coaching in individual technique, 
Trinity has turned out teams as distinct from those of the 
other small colleges as Harvard was from Yale, or Yale 
from Harvard in the old days. It is inevitable that in 
course of time, when, as has been said, the game approaches 
a standard, the novelty will wear off the Trinity system, 
but it has been one of the most interesting phases of the 
game since the radical changes in the rules. 

Just where the strategy of the future will lead is beyond 
any but a prophet to say, but it is reasonably certain that 
with the generalship approaching a standard, the best 
outlet for coaching genius is in clever violation of standard 
principles, always provided that these violations are success- 
ful. With a common scheme, or nearly common scheme 
of generalship, it is obvious that in the course of time the 
strategist will have to figure on just how he would go about 



220 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

fooling himself were he coaching the opposing eleven, and 
will see his path to innovation through departing from the 
accepted idea just enough to retain all that is fundamentally 
sound while making sure that the variation will not dis- 
organize his own eleven. In other words the guessing match 
will have to begin with a guess as to the other coach's 
opinion and expectation of any particular eleven, and end 
with a decision as to whether greater deception will be 
accomplished by doing the expected, or by doing the un- 
expected. Simply put, it is a case of matching coins all 
over again. This applies, of course, only to those coaching 
systems which are thoroughly up to date and in position 
to teach an ideal game theoretically. 

"Tricks," or, as they are commonly called nowadays, 
"brainstorms," have occasionally won important games, 
but as a rule the novelties that endure and are absorbed into 
all the coaching systems are those that are based on some 
fundamental principle, like the timing of the charge, the 
catching of the defensive line in motion, etc. Undoubtedly 
there will be progress in the future in the direction of re- 
moving the waste so common in most systems to-day — the 
waste that consists in leaving a good man in the attack too 
far from the ball, simply to care for some good man of the 
defense who is also far from the ball. The serious flaw 
with the "sliding" defense to meet the sudden line shifts 
is that it has not taken care of the element of individual 
excellence. In other words, the side-stepped line is not as 
strong individually as the shifted line, for in such a defense, 
the best so far devised, it is impossible to meet the "pairing" 
of two powerful men in the offensive line by the pairing of 
two powerful men in the defensive line. There is plenty 
of work for all the strategists right here, and if the defensive 
system has not made the most of the. personal element, it 
follows that the attack is in the same case, and may be 



TYPES— TENDENCIES— STRATEGY 221 

developed beyond any point reached up to and including the 
season of 1912. 

The advance will be the quicker, I think, when the great 
majority of teams have approached what seems to-day to be 
a reasonable standard. A great coach has said, "The game 
is still in its infancy," and this is undoubtedly true, but the 
next strategic step will come, I think, not through inspira- 
tion, but from sheer hard work on the basis of the experiences 
of all the great coaches. 



CHAPTER XIII 

GENIUS ON THE GRIDIRON 

In spite of its insistent demand for the subordination of 
individual to team effort football has produced more stars 
than any other college sport that has been dependent on 
organization on the field. The game has found room alike 
for the man who is born to lead in athletics and for the man 
who must attain such eminence as he can through unceasing 
effort and the assimilation of the best obtainable coaching. 
Among those who follow the game closely, equipped with 
some knowledge of technique, the quiet worker gets as 
much recognition as the star, but the general public dearly 
loves a hero, and football provides them in ever increasing 
numbers. The great drop-kicker and the great runner, 
these are the two types readily understood and as readily 
admired by the mass of the crowd at a big game, but they 
themselves are usually the first to point out the fact that 
their feats often would have been impossible were it not 
for the aid of the other members of the team. 

From time to time a man appears, however, to whom 
coach and spectator alike doff their hats. Their work is 
so palpably that of sheer genius that there is no room for 
envy even in the breasts of other players. Their kingdom 
is that of the Heffelfingers, the Poes, the Brickleys, the 
Wendells, the Osgoods, the Glasses, the DeWitts, the 
Thorpes, the Hudsons, the Dalys and many others — truly a 
glittering host. A few of the brightest stars of the gridiron 
were practically beyond coaching — Hinkey of Yale, Hamil- 
ton Fish Jr. of Harvard, John DeWitt of Princeton, Heston 

222 



GENIUS ON THE GRIDIRON 223 

of Michigan, Wyckoff of Cornell, Hare of Pennsylvania — 
men who could play football apparently without taking 
thought. Seldom does a season pass without the appear- 
ance, East and West, of at least one man of this type, and 
it often happens that there will be several in the football 
limelight. 

The follower of the game of long ago will remain faithful 
to a large extent to the heroes of his time — Yalensians to 
Bull, Vance McCormick, Wallis and Winter, McClung, 
the Blisses, the elder Hinkey; Princetonians to Hector 
Cowan, Riggs, Wheeler, Janeway, Lamar, Black, Edgar 
Allen Poe, Phil King, Trenchard, Holly and Lea, Addison 
Kelly, and many others; Harvard men to Mackie, the 
TrafTords, Arthur Brewer, Lee Emmons, Newell, Hallowell, 
and others of their day; Pennsylvanians to Wharton, 
Gelbert, Rosengarten, Thayer, Brooke, Schorl, Vail, Knipe, 
Osgood and Carl Williams — it is impossible to name enough 
of them in reasonable space to satisfy the old-timer. But 
the mass of the football public is forgetful, and hungers for 
new sensations by new men. They are forthcoming almost 
annually, it seems, but the time will come, I think, when 
genius in football will not have to produce a long run for a 
touchdown or a field goal in time of desperate need in order 
to earn the lasting encomiums of the public. In that happy 
day some of the wonderful, even inspirational work done by 
players who do not figure immediately in the scoring will 
be estimated at its true value, not alone by veteran players 
but by a public that has been thoroughly educated up to 
the finest points in individual technique and in generalship. 

If you talk to-day to an old-time Princeton player about 
the famous field goal of Arthur Poe, of the almost equally 
famous goal of John DeWitt, he will grant you the spec- 
tacular eminence of these men, but will want to put in a 
word for the less noticeable work of these same players and 
of others who have not achieved anything like so great fame. 



224 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

The same is true of the Harvard, Yale, Pennsylvania, Mich- 
igan, Minnesota, Chicago or Cornell veterans. They will 
want to talk of the feats that made them wonder even while 
in action, no true appraisal of which has been made by the 
mass of football followers. If genius is the capacity for 
taking infinite pains, then theirs is the truer estimate, and 
there has been far more individual stellar work in important 
games than the casual observer had suspected. 

It is natural, however, that the enduring feats should be 
those that were connected with some psychological moment, 
that moment that football provides with greater frequency 
than almost any other game, and in turning out the man 
for the moment Princeton has led all the universities and 
by a comfortable margin. Oddly enough, too, if one delves 
deeply into these remarkable Tiger performances he will 
find that some excellent bit of individual work on the part 
of another player led up to the great play of the day. 

Measured by the paucity of time remaining in which to 
turn defeat into victory, and the unexpectedness of the 
maneuver, Arthur Poe's field goal at New Haven in 1899 
occupies the pinnacle so far as individual genius in the 
moment of trial is concerned. Only the year before Poe 
had beaten Yale single-handed, and no one would have 
been greatly surprised had he picked up a loose ball and 
made a long run, perhaps for a touchdown; but that Poe 
could drop-kick a goal from the field not the most sanguine 
of the Princetonians themselves would have believed. Poe 
was a very small man, not at all the ideal end of to-day so 
far as build was concerned, but he was a terror at following 
the ball, and when he played against Yale for the second 
time, the Blue had a wholesome respect for the little Tiger 
busybody. 

Poe appeared at right end, and played his usual slashing 
game, which included remarkable interference for so small 
a man, throughout one of the toughest struggles ever in- 



GENIUS ON THE GRIDIRON 225 

dulged in between the Blue and the Orange and Black. 
There were sensational features of the sort in which the 
crowd delights long before the emergency call came to Poe, 
and even had he not won the game for the Tigers, there 
would have been enough to talk about for years to come. 
Princeton that year had the slashing Tiger tackle play 
moving with terrific speed and beautiful timing, and with 
Reiter carrying the ball, was at all times a potential ground- 
gainer of the dangerous order. It was a long run by 
Reiter, followed by a series of short plunges, that gave the 
Tigers their first score. This run in itself was made possible 
not alone by superb interference, but by individual work of 
a high order on Reiter' s part. 

Yale soon afterward scored a touchdown as the result 
of a blocked kick. So matters stood when the Yale eleven, 
toward the close of the first half, found itself just over 
Princeton's forty-yard line. The Blue had its own emer- 
gency man out that day in the person of A. L. Sharp e, 
now building up a coaching system at Cornell. Sharpe 
was one of the greatest all-round athletes ever turned 
out at New Haven, but even his ability as a drop-kicker 
had been unsuspected by the crowd. Unable to advance, 
the Elis called upon their star half-back, and Sharpe sent 
the ball over the crossbar and between the uprights from a 
distance of 46 yards, and from the side of the field, a 
phenomenal kick under any conditions. From the Prince- 
ton viewpoint the play was especially disheartening, for 
nothing takes so much out of a hard- worked team as to 
be scored upon from such a distance when the eleven 
realizes that in all other respects it is playing its opponent 
to a standoff. 

There were fewer then five minutes of the second half 
left to play when Princeton's pretty running game began 
the process of making an opportunity for Poe. There was 
more life in the Princeton eleven than in Yale, for it had been 

15 



226 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

wisely decided to send in fresh men with great rapidity, and 
this alone was evidence of excellent headwork. Again the 
Princeton tackle play settled down to its work, and in six 
plays the Tigers were within striking distance, but without, 
as everybody thought, a drop-kicker upon whom to call. 

It was Poe himself who saw the opportunity and asked 
for his chance. He had a brief talk with W. H. Edwards, 
the Tiger captain, and the latter, realizing that the time 
was almost up and it was impossible to score by rushing, 
granted the little end's request. Poe, Edwards figured, 
was a steady, reliable player in all other branches of the 
game, and was also a senior. There did not seem to be 
one chance in a hundred that the play would be a success, 
but Edwards figured that if anyone was to take the chance 
Poe was the man. The men lined up in the kick formation, 
the ball was passed to Poe and the little man sent it fairly 
over the bar between the posts, winning the game by a 
single point with only 36 seconds left to play. It was a 
wonderful piece of work for a practically unpracticed kicker. 

It is plays such as this that appeal to the public as the 
individual expression of genius, but I shall turn now to a 
bit of splendid thinking and instant decision that would 
never catch the mass of the public and even escaped some 
of the keenest critics on the side line. It resulted in the 
defeat of Yale by the Army in 1911 on a field no better than a 
morass, and was the work of R. F. Hyatt, the Army captain 
and quarterback. Yale went to West Point that day 
equipped mainly with the Minnesota shift, led by two 
veteran tackles, Scully and Paul, only to find that the foot- 
ing, owing to two days of steady rain, was extremely treach- 
erous, and that West Point's defense against the shift was 
far and away the best the team had met. Indeed, before 
the game, it was openly asserted that the shift would not 
gain against the Army defense. And so it proved. 

In the meantime the Army had been working out a form 



GENIUS ON THE GRIDIRON 227 

of attack based on the "lop-sided" line — that is, with 
only one man on one side of the centre. Simple but power- 
ful plays had been devised for use from this formation, but 
they were in crude form on the day of the game. It had 
been planned, however, to strike quickly and strike hard, 
before Yale became accustomed to facing the altered forma- 
tion, and to that end the kicking game was begun at once, 
in the hope of making an opening for the use of two or 
three of the strongest running plays. The game was 
scarcely more than a minute old when the opportunity 
came through a blocked kick recovered in Yale territory by 
an Army player. 

Hyatt's first play was a good ground-gainer, but it carried 
the team well to the left of the goal posts. The second 
play had been planned, not only to gain ground, but to 
bring the ball well out in the field again so as to provide a 
chance for a field goal should the running plays fail. Had 
Hyatt adhered to the generalship laid out for him he 
would have swung his next play to the right, but in an 
instant he noticed that the Yale defensive backs were 
out of position, and instantly changing his generalship he 
shot another play over to the left and away from the goal 
posts. It was so successful that it was an easy matter to 
send Dean on the third play over the line for the touchdown 
which was the only score of the day. Had Hyatt adhered 
/to the original plan, he could not have been censured by 
the coaches, but from his position on the field he could see 
the flaw in Yale's defense far better than they, and thus 
violated the generalship and gained the victory. Truly an 
inconspicuous proceeding as far as those in the stands 
were concerned, but nevertheless an expression in the 
highest form of genius in football. 

Another form of football genius is the finding of openings 
and the choosing of the path that leads to touchdowns. 
This sort of genius lies dormant now and then for a long 



228 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

period only to come to the surface in marvelous fashion 
as in the case of S. B. Thorne, the great Yale broken field 
runner who at one time was not very promising, and in the 
case of F. M. Tibbott of Princeton, one of the uncanniest 
tackle runners ever seen on the field. There was nothing 
in Tibbott's running that savored of strength or surface 
cleverness, but he had a way of slipping away from a 
tackier that troubled the best of them. Tibbott was a 
consistent scorer, even when his team was being beaten, 
while Thorne did his great running against Princeton on a 
day when the Tigers were themselves in scoring mood. L. 
Stacy of the Army was another great runner who was a 
master hand at turning the ends, and had a peculiar "switch- 
ing" style of crossing the field and shaking off tacklers that 
was sheer gift and never could have been acquired. Yet 
to-day hardly anyone ever hears of Stacy. 

Kelly of Princeton was another genius who knew more 
football than anyone could teach him, and who upon 
occasion proved that he could go it alone. One of the 
most remarkable exhibitions of consecutive ground-gaining 
with little or no assistance that I have ever seen was given 
by Kelly in the Yale-Princeton game of 1897 at New Haven, 
when a veteran Tiger eleven was defeated by an unheralded 
team in blue led by that splendid tackle and oarsman, 
James 0. Rodgers. The Tiger team, which had smothered 
Yale the year before at the Polo Grounds, boasted of such 
veterans as Cochran, Holt, Hillebrand, Baird, Bannard, 
Kelly and Reiter, and was a favorite in the betting at 3 to 1. 
It became apparent soon after the game opened, however, 
that it was a case of overtrained veterans against under- 
trained youngsters who were figuratively bursting with 
ambition, and the inevitable happened. 

With almost certain defeat staring them in the face, the 
Tigers made one last desperate rally, and in doing so 
called repeatedly on Kelly, with the result that with this 



GENIUS ON THE GRIDIRON 229 

star carrying the ball in nearly every rush the Princeton 
eleven carried the ball fifty-five yards up the field only to 
lose it at last on a fumble. Time and again in the course 
of this heroic advance Kelly went into or slid outside of 
tackle practically unaided, bowling along more like a big 
ball than like a human being. It was one of the great ex- 
hibitions of a born runner, of a football genius, and much 
more to be lauded than his work the previous year, when he 
was aided by one of the greatest football machines ever sent 
into a big game. 

Harold Weekes of Columbia was another backfield genius 
who stands near the top. I know of no other back in the 
history of the game who was able to put on a greater 
burst of speed at the instant of turning an end than Weekes, 
and although his hurdling the line was always spectacular 
when done with the special formation devised to carry 
him up into the air and over the forwards, his end running 
was the one thing in which he relied upon his own superb 
speed and judgment of pace. In this he was practically 
beyond coaching, a law unto himself. 

C. R. Wyckoff, the Cornell captain of 1895, was one of 
the few Ithaca players who ever showed real football genius. 
A small man, he ran erect, like a sprinter, in a broken field, 
and developed himself into an excellent punter with prac- 
tically no tuition in that branch of the game, learning how 
to get remarkable distance considering his light weight. No 
other runner that I have ever seen has been such a consist- 
ent performer in running back a kick-off unless perhaps it be 
T. L. Shevlin, the Yale end. Their methods were much 
the same, simple and direct, for both came straight up the 
field without swerving a yard, it seemed, from right to left, 
and both struck the first gathering of tacklers at such 
terrific speed, that many of them were spilled before the 
runner was brought down. Here Shevlin's weight stood 
him in good stead, but Wyckoff was small, and seemed to 



230 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

cut through the bunched tacklers like a knife. Both these 
men were masters of some mysterious football craft that it 
seems impossible to teach. There are endless examples 
of this individual football genius when carrying the ball 
alone is considered. 

The geniuses of the defense have been fewer, it would 
seem, yet here too, individualism has had its day and is 
still having it. One of the greatest tackles ever seen on 
any field was that by J. W. Field of Yale, in the Harvard- 
Yale game of 1910 at New Haven. That tackle undoubt- 
edly saved Yale from defeat. The powerful Wendell had 
been slipping out opposite tackle and then driving straight 
ahead clear through to the Yale secondary defense again 
and again, carrying the ball steadily into Yale territory. 
Time and again he drove his powerful shoulders into the 
Blue tacklers and kept on for yard after yard before he was 
brought down. The Yale defense could do nothing with 
him or with the play, it seemed, and a Harvard touchdown 
appeared certain, for the ball had been carried to within 
thirteen yards of Yale's goal and the play was still moving 
with all the precision and power it had shown further up 
the field. 

Just at this point the Harvard quarterback thought it a 
good plan to relieve Wendell for the moment, saving him 
for the supreme effort that was to result in a touchdown. 
So he gave the ball to Corbett, another strong runner, and 
the latter, moving in the same type of play, drove through 
in approved Wendell fashion to the Yale secondary defense. 
But Field, who had borne the brunt of the defense, was in 
desperate mood, and came up just as fast as the Harvard 
runner. He struck the Crimson back with all the force at 
his command, and made a perfect tackle, so terrific that 
Corbett dropped the ball, a Yale man fell on it, and the 
game, as it turned out, was saved. Field had to leave the 
game, but he had taken the steam out of the Harvard 



GENIUS ON THE GRIDIRON 231 

attack, and many good judges agree that no player living 
could have held onto the ball had he been tackled as Field 
tackled Corbett. It may be considered a stretch of the 
imagination to call such a tackle a manifestation of foot- 
ball genius, but to my mind Field did a thing that no one 
but a born football player could have done, and in such 
a way that the moral effect of it was felt by both teams. 

Genius in defense is based largely on able diagnosis of 
plays. Coaching will go far toward teaching a man how to 
diagnose the attack, but there have been men who were 
born to it, and who in this respect were practically beyond 
coaching. Of these I think Frank Hinkey of Yale was first. 
Here was a man who was slender and even almost weak in 
appearance, and who, especially against Princeton in 1893, 
faced some of the most powerful plays ever devised. Against 
him was thrown interference of an order seldom seen since, 
and yet Hinkey sifted through this interference with great 
regularity just as he had always sifted through interference 
ever since he had made his first appearance at Yale. He 
had a method all his own, and not even the best coaches 
could show him anything in the matter of diagnosing plays. 
To men who followed Hinkey's work while he was an 
undergraduate at New Haven the man always seemed less 
a body than a flame — an indomitable and strange spirit 
in a none too rugged casing of flesh and bone. Nowadays, 
ends and others who disentangle interference keep their 
heads up until they have come to a decision as to how best 
to reach the runner, but Hinkey seemed to have the knack 
of going in with his head down and apparently looking 
only at the ground, and getting his man no matter how 
strong the interference against him. 

It was in this same game of 1893 that J. R. Blake, the 
Princeton fullback, did a bit of quick thinking and took a 
dangerous risk that meant a great deal to Princeton's 
chances. It was at a time when Princeton was working 



232 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

steadily down into Yale territory. Yale managed to get the 
ball, but was forced to kick at once, and Butterworth lifted 
a high, short kick to Blake, who was playing a very deep 
backfield. Blake came up at top speed, but instead of 
slowing up and trying to make sure of the ball on the bound, 
he lunged forward full length and snapped it up on the fly. 
It was a dangerous form of catch to attempt, but once hav- 
ing made up his mind Blake put his plan into perfect execu- 
tion. The Yale forwards, notably Hinkey, were well down 
on the ball, and a fumble at this stage would have meant 
trouble for Princeton, possibly a long run on a picked up 
ball, or worse. As Blake dived forward and gathered in the 
ball he and Hinkey came together head on in one of the 
worst collisions I have ever seen in football, and neither 
man was himself after the crash for the rest of the game. 

I have mentioned in my first chapter the genius of Cooney 
of Princeton, in adapting his defense to a new style of play 
in a game against Cornell, which was a very fair sample 
of individual initiative, and I want to say a word here about 
the clever thinking on defense of a man who played against 
Cooney. I refer to the late J. J. Hogan, of Yale, who was a 
fine type of athlete. The incident I have in mind occurred 
in the Harvard- Yale game of 1903. Harvard had made a 
desperate rally, determined to score, and at last sent 
Nichols away for what seemed a sure touchdown. He was 
tackled just as he seemed to be crossing the line when Hogan 
swung around behind from the other side, and tackling the 
Harvard halfback high, and holding him up, slowly bent him 
back and away from the goal line, finally putting him to 
the ground when the last chalk line was safe from invasion. 
Nothing but great strength and tackling in a certain way 
prevented a touchdown. 

Harvard had an eleven in 1912 nearly every member of 
which was close to a football genius. This accounted in 
part for the superb individual interference so much in 



GENIUS ON THE GRIDIRON 233 

evidence on the day of the game with Yale. Perhaps the 
greatest credit in the way of thinking football on that day 
should go to Gardner, the quarterback, who made a re- 
markably fine selection of plays, and in so doing removed 
the last criticism against Harvard's football methods. For 
Brickley as a drop-kicker Yale had been prepared, but 
not for Brickley as a runner. Using Wendell in the middle 
of the field, the little Crimson field general suddenly fell 
back upon Brickley when at last within striking distance, 
and also chose a wide end run although there was not a 
great deal of ground to cover. How well his choice was 
made was proved by the result, for Yale was not prepared 
to see Brickley take the ball, and this allowed just enough 
of a start to make the play go, aided by superb interference 
on the part of Wendell and Hardwick. This was football 
sense amounting to genius on Gardner's part, and although 
he did not achieve an All- America standing, his day's work 
was as useful as a quarterback could be called upon to show. 

Brickley himself is a fine sample of football genius, 
although his kicking is so spectacular as to rob him of credit 
due for other good points of play. He is the popular type 
of football hero, but would be a great asset to any team even 
if he could not kick at all. 

It required no deep student of the game to recognize the 
football genius of E. H. Coy of Yale, yet Coy's finest 
achievement was not merely the making of a run that re- 
sulted in a winning touchdown, but in keen estimation of 
the value of each man on his team and accurate summing 
up of his own abilities, so that in the year of his captaincy 
he converted himself from a wonderful runner into a re- 
markable drop-kicker. And the way he went about it 
was characteristic, for finding the regular drop-kicking 
method unsuited, he dropped the ball so that on the rise 
he could catch it on his instep, thus, while keeping within 
the rules, turning his powerful punting ability into a sue- 



234 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

cessful scoring factor. Coy knew that he was not at his 
best as a runner in his last year, but was determined still 
to be a foremost figure in the scoring. This bit of head work 
resulted in his retiring with his reputation still at its zenith, 
instead of going the way of so many other stars in the year 
of their captaincy. 

The individual exploits of John DeWitt of Princeton are 
still fresh in the memory of most followers of the game, but 
some of his warmest admirers maintain that his genius lay 
in his qualities as a leader, his adaptability, and his actual 
line play, even against such a remarkable man as Glass of 
Yale. Until Thorpe, the Carlisle Indian, made his appear- 
ance, there was no more dangerous runner from the strategic- 
ally interesting kick formation than DeWitt, and I firmly 
believe that DeWitt's running was done against better 
defenses than Thorpe was called upon to face. DeWitt's 
build was ideal for the tackle position, but he was quite as 
good a guard, and his all-round knowledge of the game was 
as great as that of any man who has come out of Princeton 
in recent years. 

No consideration of football genius would be complete 
without mention of the coaches. Genius is, of course, to 
be expected of them in the way of planning plays and laying 
out campaigns, but there are smaller things in which the 
same quality comes to the surface. One of these is the 
handling of men and getting out of them more than anyone 
would dream was in them. I have in mind a case at West 
Point two years ago, the coach in question being Capt. 
Joseph W. Beacham, Jr., U. S. A., and the player A. V. 
Arnold, a guard on the Army team. The eleven was being 
prepared for the final game of the season, the battle with the 
Navy. The Annapolis team boasted the services of a young 
man named Brown whose play at guard had been a terror 
to the Army the year before, and whose specialty was 
getting down the field as fast as the ends and smothering 



GENIUS ON THE GRIDIRON 235 

the catcher of kicks. The Army coaches figured for a long 
time over some way to keep Brown from getting down the 
field without using too many men in checking him. Finally, 
the head coach, who knew the temperaments of all the play- 
ers as thoroughly as any coach I have ever seen, tried the 
simple scheme of a sort of mental suggestion. Hyatt, the 
team captain and quarterback, was the man played back 
on kicks, and he was not rugged enough to stand the hard 
tackling of a man like Brown should it prove to be constant. 
Hyatt was a popular leader and the other members of the 
team swore by him. One day after the practice the coach 
led Arnold aside and said to the husky guard, " Arnold, 
do you like Hyatt ?" 

"Why, yes, sir; why?" was the puzzled reply. 

" Oh, nothing, never mind," said the coach, " I just wanted 
to know." 

Question and answer were repeated day after day, but 
it was not until within three days of the big game that the 
coach enlightened the big forward on the subject. He put 
the usual query and received the usual answer. Then he 
said, impressively: "All right, if you care anything about 
Hyatt don't you let that man Brown get down the field." 

Throughout the big game Arnold played as never before, 
and whenever the Navy kicked saw to it that Brown, with 
all his strength, speed, and cunning, did not get down the 
field. One of the most dangerous men in the Navy line 
was thus effectively checked, and by one man. Surely 
this was in the nature of genius on the part of the coach in 
handling men. 

When it came to genius as shown in the invention of 
football plays Walter Camp, Lorin F. Deland and Wylie 
Woodruff long had the field to themselves, but to-day Dr. 
H. L. Williams at Minnesota, Percy D. Haughton at Har- 
vard, Fielding H. Yost at Michigan, A. A. Stagg at Chicago, 
Ed. Robinson at Brown, Frank Cavanaugh at Dartmouth, 



236 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

and Glenn Warner at Carlisle are names to conjure with, 
while Prof. Gattell at Trinity, J. F. High at Wesleyan, 
and Hermann Olcott at New York University, who also 
coaches at Annapolis, are rapidly working into the front 
rank of the strategists. And the Springfield Training 
School has proved that it has some football genius who is 
supplying the teams from that institution with some of 
the cleverest and most successful forward passes the game 
has seen. The individual has certainly survived. 

Coming to diagnosticians of the coaching ranks we find 
such men as George Foster Sanford of Yale and Reginald 
Brown of Harvard in the field. Sanford's exploit in chang- 
ing the whole style of Yale's defense between the halves in 
the game at New Haven in 1907 so as to check a brilliant 
Princeton attack that had rolled up ten points in the first 
half is too well known to need more than mention here, 
while any man who has sat close to Brown in the grandstand 
and heard him call off play after play before the ball was 
snapped will hardly need be told that this quiet Harvard 
man is also one of the real geniuses of the game. 



CHAPTER XIV 

ETHICS OF THE GAME — RELATIONS OF SCHOOLBOY AND COL- 
LEGIAN — THE FACULTY ELEMENT 

At the top of the football scoreboards of ten years or so 
ago there appeared these two words in huge letters: 
" harvard — opponents.^ To-day the lettering runs: 
" harvard — visitors." The same change has been made 
at Yale and Princeton and at other institutions East and 
West. A change small in itself, but unmistakable proof 
of the new order of things and the progress of a better 
feeling among the great football institutions. The first 
institution to change the scoreboard lettering came in for a 
deal of good-natured guying, and certain of the old-timers 
called the proceeding "soft." To be fair, to be courteous, 
in football, however, is no longer considered "soft." There 
is still a long way to travel in order to reach the ideal condi- 
tion, but the progress has been steady. 

Little by little the general public has come to look not 
for the old cartoonist's idea of the football player — a 
gladiator in armor — but an athlete playing the most exact- 
ing of college games, an athlete prepared to undergo with 
honor the severest test to which sportsmanship can be put. 
Personal physical contact in any game stirs in any manly 
man worthy the name the old fighting spirit, and there were 
games in the old days when the players "saw red." 

That sort of thing is rare nowadays. There are plenty of 
hard knocks, to be sure, and the game is still rough, as it 
always will be, but out-and-out slugging, tripping, falling 
on a man's head or "kneeing" him in the soft part of the 

237 



238 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

lower leg have all but disappeared from the game. The 
rules against this sort of thing are more severe than they 
used to be, the officials are quicker to note offenses, for 
there is team work among the officials too, and the game has 
been so frequently under the fire of outside criticism that its 
supporters have done their utmost to curb lawless play. 
This granted, I believe that the general sentiment both 
among the players and the graduate and undergraduate 
bodies has had a great deal to do with " cleaning up" the 
sport. 

Time was when the player was led to believe that the man 
who was to be his opponent in the big game concealed under 
his uniform both horns and a tail. Two utter strangers 
came face to face on the field before a crowd of 10,000 or 
more and fought each other to a finish, by fair means if 
possible, but too often by foul. Not that there were not 
good sportsmen in those days, not that the football field 
was not the scene of more than one generous action — merely 
that the sportsmanship was spasmodic. And there were 
years, too, in which two whole teams went at each other 
hammer and tongs — simply '" beat each other up." Then 
came charge and countercharge, and not infrequently the 
severance of all athletic relations between two ancient 
rivals. It followed that the two teams could not get 
together again until each university was equipped with a 
new set of undergraduates and the hatchet could be decently 
buried. 

Nowadays there are still quarrels and cross-charges of 
rough play, but they are not lasting and they do not cause 
the tremendous upheavals in the college world they used 
to do. There are signs of permanent health in football, 
and the lapses from virtue here and there only serve to 
accentuate the general good feeling. The players of to-day 
are too absorbed in the business of learning the intricacies 
of a much more difficult game than of old to have any time 



ETHICS OF THE GAME 239 

to devote to undue roughness and personal rancor, and so 
great is the demand for personal efficiency that the player 
cannot afford to waste any of his precious energy in " rough 
house," even if so inclined. The big games are usually 
"clean," even if the lesser ones cannot go scot free of 
criticism. 

Granted that splendid progress has been made it is worth 
while making an organized effort to guarantee further 
progress in years to come. In this the National Collegiate 
Athletic Association, organized under another name in a 
time of stress, and in old-fashioned football opinion fore- 
doomed to failure, has led the way. This organization has 
brought together representatives of football institutions all 
over the country, and as a result of the free interchange of 
opinion and a great deal of courageous truth-telling, has 
been able to wield a tremendous influence for good in foot- 
ball as well as in other sports. Even the schoolboys have 
been reached to some extent, and although the organization 
seeks no power it has done splendid work. Perhaps the 
very fact that it sought no power was the reason of its 
success. 

I refer to this association principally to show that the 
cure for whatever ill remains in football lies not so much 
in legislation as in force of opinion, and opinion from the 
"inside." 

Some of this "inside" opinion might well be brought to 
bear on the relations between the collegian and the schoolboy. 
These relations ought to be closer than they have been and 
they ought to be on a higher plane. Too often the collegian 
has appeared at the school only to look over the football 
team and induce its more promising members to enter his 
own university. Too often "inducements" of one sort or 
another have been offered, and too often the schoolboy goes 
up to the university with an exaggerated opinion of his own 
prowess and importance only to do harm to himself and to 



240 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

the university. Since freshmen are no longer eligible to 
'varsity football teams the evil has dwindled noticeably, 
but certain of the smaller colleges are still in the ranks of 
the offenders. 

Another great bar to the old form of proselyting is the 
advance in scholastic requirements. It takes a good stu- 
dent nowadays to stay on the football team, and yet the 
average collegian has made no organized effort to advise 
the schoolboy of that fact. He might name man after 
man, if he would, who is well up in his class and who plays 
football well largely because he does everything well. It 
seems not to have occurred to the Varsity football man to 
go before his old school and tell the boys about the serious 
business of the university, omitting all reference to foot- 
ball. If he were to do so there would be fewer cases of 
schoolboy athletes who are willing to play on the team of 
any institution they may be sure of entering and remaining 
in without hard work. 

There are earnest and capable students on most of the 
big elevens, but how many who might have made the team 
and at the same time have been valuable members of the 
undergraduate body have been lost by the wayside, simply 
because when schoolboys they were made to believe that 
athletic proficiency would make up for ordinary scholarship ! 
To put it even from the viewpoint of the coach — of what 
value to the team in the end is the man who is always in 
difficulties with the college office? And the pity of it is 
that such a man might never have been in such difficulties 
had he only been warned in time. The larger preparatory 
schools understand this thing better than they used to, and 
they are in closer touch with the collegian who is at once 
athlete and student, but apparently no helping hand, save 
in rare instances, has been held out to the smaller schools 
where the need is great, and also immediate. It is a mistake 
to suppose that the schoolboy will not listen to the college 



ETHICS OF THE GAME 241 

athlete on any subject other than athletics. On the con- 
trary he is sufficiently impressed with the collegian's repu- 
tation to give respectful attention to his discourse whether 
it be on Calculus or intensive farming. The football may 
come later. 

It is to the interests of the college athlete that the "prep" 
school boys who come up to the university be well prepared. 
It is the only absolute safeguard against the revival of 
ancient feuds with the faculty, and the only guarantee of 
thorough co-operation between the faculty and the athletic 
heads. Committees are all well enough in their way, but 
committees are not human, while individual members of 
them are. The faculty member with the "grouch" against 
athletics is well known. I do not think, however, that he 
is a permanent institution, but rather the fruit of the age- 
long misunderstanding between what used to be called the 
"high brow" and the "low brow" elements. I have 
spoken elsewhere of the increasing dignity of the professional 
coach and of his responsibilities in the practical outdoor 
guardianship of the candidates for the teams. With the 
increasing importance of the general playground idea at 
all the universities there will be more of these men in demand. 
I do not seek to maintain that all of them should be con- 
nected with the faculty in one form or another, but he is a 
short-sighted professor or instructor who fails to recognize 
the value of the newcomer's work. 

The problem of maintaining harmony between what in 
the past were warring elements differs at different institu- 
tions, and each must work out the problem in its own way. 
The main point is that there must be the disposition to get 
together. 

A great many faculty men have complained from time 
to time that those who were connected with sports occupied 
the lime lightwith too great frequency, although their 
complaints were couched in loftier language. The sponsors 

16 



242 FOOTBALL FOR PUBLIC AND PLAYER 

of athletics, however, have never sought to deny them a 
hearing. Let them be publicists if they will, only let them 
spend some time and more than the customary care in a 
study of the subject. Their opinions will be welcomed, 
just as the National Collegiate Athletic Association has 
welcomed opinions on athletic welfare from any quarter 
whatsoever. Football, in greater need than any other 
sport of intelligent and constructive criticism, has been 
beset with vastly more of the other kind. 

College football I believe to be a permanent American 
institution, and every man who will may have a share in 
building it up and keeping it on a high plane, whether 
player, coach, student, teacher or spectator. This particu- 
lar "slice of life" is worth every man's while. 



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